EDITH ARNOLD 

and Other Poems 


S. WILSON MORRIS 













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EDITH ARNOLD 

AND OTHER POEMS 

S. WILSON MORRIS 



BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 










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Thi Gorham Press, Bostobt, U. S. A. 


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THIS BOOK OF POEMS IS 
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
TO 

MY BROTHER 
ERNEST S. MORRIS 





















CONTENTS 


EDITH ARNOLD.*. 9 

SUMMER RAIN. 56 

FANCY AND THE BUTTERFLY. 57 

THE BLIZZARD. 59 

FAITH . 63 

RECONCILIATION . 64 

WINTER . 65 

SLEEP . 67 

ENDEAVOR. 68 

LINES TO H. 69 

EXTRAVAGANZA . 71 

THE OLD YEAR. 72 

CONTENTMENT . 75 

THE DROWNED BOY. 77 

LITTLE EFFIE. 78 

WHAT A CLOUD SAW. 79 

SPRING. 81 

THE DRIFTING BOAT. 83 

CITY OF THE DEAD. 84 

THE RIVER. 85 

A LEGEND. 87 

THE NIGHT OF LABOR. 90 

MY SAILOR LAD. 112 

THE PROMISE . 113 

THE BIRD . 114 

TO H. 115 

SERENADE . 116 


5 





























AUTUMN STORM. 117 

IMPRISONED. 118 

APRIL . 119 

WINTER’S COMING . 120 

THE DEAR OLD WOODS. 121 

THE MARCH WINDS. 124 

THE JIMPSON WEED. 125 

THE PET RABBIT. 126 

A LITTLE FAIRY. 127 

THE SNOW BIRD. 128 

WRITTEN FOR ROSE, 

FOUR YEARS OLD . 129 

THE BABY. 131 

THE BEE . 132 

THE KITTENS. 133 

THE RABBIT AND THE FOX. 135 

SCHOOL-BOY . 137 

THE CHILD’S INQUIRIES. 138 

ALLEN AND BEATRICE. 139 

GERALDINE . 176 

AGE. 178 

TO MISS C. 179 

MY FATHER. 181 

CHRISTMAS . 182 

BUILDING CASTLES. 184 

A FRAGMENT . 186 

THE LOVERS. 187 


6 




























A VALENTINE. 187 

EXAMPLE . 188 

DECORATION DAY. 189 

THANKSGIVING. 190 

EXTRAVAGANZA . 192 

THE BIRD . 194 

THE REVELER . 195 

THE EAGLE . 197 

ETHEL LYNN . 198 

HETTIE EVELARD . 199 

OLDEN TIMES. 233 

WINTER AND SPRING.234 

MAGDALEN . 235 

A HAIL STORM .236 

WINTER.237 

WINTER.239 

MY VALENTINE. 240 

THE TORNADO. 242 

TO MISS H.243 

TO MISS C.243 

TO MISS E. 244 

IN WINTER . 245 

THE WOODS . 246 

TO MISS A.247 

THE DREAM ...248 


7 


































EDITH ARNOLD 


My queen, my brightest rose, awake; 

Look into my soul with thy bright eyes, 

Till the stars look dull in the spangled skies, 
Till my sluggish spirit shall arise and shake 

A giant despair that clutches at my heart 
With his wrinkled hand like talons or claws,— 
With lion’s teeth it bites and gnaws, 

Till fain would I my life depart. 

But a beautiful bird of purest white, 

Sings a song with voice so sweet, 

So like the voice of one I would meet. 

That my soul is filled with a deep delight. 

I look at the shining stars and name, 

If that one should be my own, 

And a cloud were over it blown, 

Who then would be to blame? 

If my spirit sickened with dread,— 

With a jealous dread of death 
That’s born of a word or a breath— 

’Twere better to know she were dead. 

But the cloud is sailing away, 

Though it seems to pause at the gate, 

Low down in the east, to await 
The approach of another day. 

9 


Were some unforseen mischance to fall, 
And I not false were colder grown, 
Could passionate love be overthrown— 
Prove it for once and for all ? 

Were one so cold and white— 

As cold and white as the snow 
That shines with its silvery glow 
In the frosty air of night, 

And one should come and weep, 

And touch with her finger-tips, 

Would life return to the lips, 

And awake from out of the sleep? 

It seemed, were I moldered to dust, 

And she would utter my name, 

I would burn with an inward flame, 

To bind me there, were it just. 

Did I know she would come and weep 
Sorrowful tears at my grave, 

The love of life would not save, 

For into my grave I would creep. 

I would lie so quiet and still, 

And she would lavish her flowers, 

And mourn and weep for hours— 
Then I would rise and do my will. 


10 


Would she then look so bold, 

With the purple blue of her eyes ? 

Would she look so wonderous wise 
Because of my love I had told? 

Would she be gen’rous enough to retreat 
With a wond’ring look of surprise, 

And with thoughts she well might devise, 
Claim it were not a defeat? 

Should I clasp her, full of delight 
At my sudden return to life, 

And ask her to be my wife, 

Would she nod in very affright? 

But I have not spoken yet,— 

The old dog that barks at you 
No doubt has taken his cue 
From one I shall not forget. 

For he said he guarded a flower, 

And if I should choose an adviser, 

I would find it better and wiser 

Than attempt what was out of my power. 

Give him rein, give him rein; 

He shall not win her, 

His hair will be grayer and thinner 
E’er she shall hear me complain. 


11 


I have just seen the brightest star— 
What if it should slip from its place 
And glide meteor-like to the earth, 
Should the heavens all be disgraced? 

Or should hope bring another to birth? 

I walked with her on the street, 

And her face was full of pain, 

And I knew she would soon complain 
Of one she feared to meet. 

I am cold, yet I would fain 
That she will not prove untrue, 

And no matter whatever I do 
It will not be a loss but a gain. 

If I tell her alone will she hear?— 

Tell her I’m mad with hate, 

Tell her whatever my fate 
Tell her the truth that I fear? 

Would it be wiser thus to do, 

Wiser thus to complain, 

What were she suffering pain 
For the faith she has in you? 

She believes me true, I know. 

What if they’d tell her a tale— 

A lie double-coated with mail— 

Would she listen and believe it so? 


12 


What better would it be 
If I were richer in disguise? 

Would I look out of the eyes 
These rich men do at me ? 

Were it so, would I be so clever 
As to smile at a dusty boot, 

Mistaking the power for the root, 

Not knowing the force of the lever? 

It cannot be she would falter. 

Not all the stormy splendor 

The heavens themselves could lend her 

Her mind would ever alter. 

But though I bade her stay? 

They speak no doubt discreetly; 

They smile at her so sweetly, 

I fear her faith’s decay. 

Will they never be done 
With horrible croaking of lies? 

Shall they lead her thus to despise ? 

There are spots that stick to the sun! 

Let me grasp but the finger of Fate— 
Whatever the world might devise, 

I would break through the network of lies, 
And Fortune would open her gate. 


13 


Is it He who gave me life— 

As the life to a lilly-white rose 
Whose petals I hope ne’er will close— 

With shame would speak of strife? 

And if I should sit by a mountain and sing, 

And a shadow should fall on my face, 

Should I hang my head in disgrace 
At the mist a cloudlet might fling? 

If a farmer should stand by the wall, 

And it were either too hot or too cold, 

Though his pockets were heavy with gold, 
What crops would he reap in the fall? 

Who am I that I should have home in a tower, 
One that should be a king, 

One that should make the world ring 
With the love and praises of power? 

What if by chance a purse should fall 
Into my hand ? Should I be taller or wiser, 

Or hold my head like a miser 
Because I had money at call? 

Shall a spirit come in the air, 

A spirit of infinite loss, 

If for luck a coin you’d toss 

And the weather should promise fair? 


14 


What of the weather! Sure, the code on. the vane 
Awaits the sun at his rising; 

And it seems immensely surprising 
This turning and twisting for gain. 

I have seen a magic forest spring, 

With a thickening jingle of frosty spines, 

As if it were a thing of pow’r devine— 

Yet it disappears like a bird on the wing. 

Thus I tremble lest a cheat 
Should lie beneath a mask; 

And the thing I fain would ask: 

Be an ambush for the indiscreet. 

They are not indeed of my choice, 

These thoughts that awaken pain; 

For I’m sure she is not to blame— 

I could listen all night to her voice. 

What if I should cross the sea 

And wrap myself in a vapor bath 

Of English fogs, would it cool my wrath, 

Would it be any better than not to agree? 

What if I should watch a rising ball— 

With its tangled mass of golden hair— 

Which seems to look and gaze and stare, 

Till I miss my way and stumble and fall? 




15 


Or try to catch, by climbing a hill, 

Another glimpse of a shining face, 

Or flee to the west to try him a race, 

Would there be a chance for me still? 

Can I speak aloud and call 

The stars from their shining spheres, 

Expecting all nations to pause and hear 
Them dropping like nuts in the fall? 

If a simple one should set a net 
To catch true hearts, and a hole he found, 

And it were useless to bring the draught to 
ground, 

Would he mend his trap or another get? 

All day long I sit and dream— 

The willow above, and the water below— 

Which seems with delight to be all aglow— 

In my eyes a fitful gleam. 

For in my mind is an image fair 
Of a wond’rous girl with an angel’s face 
And who carries a vivid, glowing trace 
Of the golden sun in her hair. 

And I suddenly tremble and blush, 

Fearing that all shall be known 
Which is meant but for me alone— 

If only the stream would hush! 


16 


Then I strike the stream in my ire, 

And I rave, and rant and cry; 

But the brook goes singing by, 

Nor heeds my vengeance dire— 

Until I am happy and glad 
That my mind it helped to allay, 

By taking the image away— 

The image that drove me mad. 

Today I wander through the clover fields 
And see the smiling red and purple bloom, 

And tangled stems, which crowding up for room, 
To the mild air the sweetest perfumes yield. 

And I wonder now what fortune has in store— 
The tangled boughs in monotone complain, 

The farmer calls a rude and hearty swain 
And bids him ask the stranger to his door. 

Around, the romping, fair-haired children play, 
With eyes that look into the smiling face 
And quickly estimate his power and place, 

With hands extended, or, fearing, run away. 

On I go, careless of the time and place— 

Deep in the glen the voice of whip-poor-will 
Proclaims the night’s approach, and from the hill 
Tall shadows fall across my face. 


17 


What time we know the mind awakes, 

Just the night, the coming hour we feel, 

And o’er the bright scene the mists of ev’ning steal, 
And a lurid songster the silence rudely breaks. 

Now, when soft twilight fell, like a touch of love 
And the tall treetops that kissed the sun’s last ray 
Grew silent and still as the waters lay, 

When the spirit of calm and peace rules the air 
above, 


A voice came, borne on the breeze— 

Such a voice as one who hears 
Worships a vain perfection and fears 
The wine shall flow out—the spirit freeze. 

Yet, the song has the fullness of pure sweet hope, 
With such a touch of nature that the close 
Was as the first, life and calm repose, 

And all my thoughts and visions to new life ope’. 

A maiden singing a new wild song 
Of airy ships that o’er us sail, 

Of gallant knights with coats of mail 
Making great wars to right a wrong. 

But not like the songs that now awake, 

That stir my inmost soul this hour, 

With an infinite love of life and power, 

Power my selfishness to rise and break. 


18 


Silent is the busy voice of care, 

The rosy-lipped clouds have eastward flown, 

So smoothly float the light and ambient air 
To those strange fields where clouds are grown. 

Alone with Fancy all undressed— 

By the arms of Fancy close caressed— 

With sweet perfume about me blown, 

The voice of nature claims her own. 

Far, far away the city dim, 

Remembered as a clouded dream, 

That floats above the horizon’s brim— 

A heart in love with beauty’s beam. 

The leaf upon the trembling bough, 

Kisses the over-laden breeze, 

And thus buds wake—we know not how— 

And stand erect the growing trees. 

What is love to pride—pride that we feel ? 

I shall stand erect before her, 

And tell her I adore her. 

What if she bid me kneel? Why, I shall not kneel. 

Come, my love, my queen—the rosy west 
Hath buried the shining orb of day— 

And on my spirit heavier lay 
Than ice upon the ocean’s breast. 


19 


I know the sun will rise again, 

And shine across the glowing fields, 

And all that lives to fate must yield— 

To hope alone must be in vain. 

Could beauty look with brighter eyes, 

And smile toward some rising star, 

Though it be cold and very far, 

I would envy even the fading skies. 

Why so cold my haughty queen? 

The ice upon the frozen lake, 

The summer sun will thaw and break, 

And all the fields will cover green. 

Come pick me out a poet’s dream— 

The bravest knight with beauty pleads, 

And on the field of battle bleeds, 

While her image before him beams. 

I dreamed that the wild birds sang a song of 
delight. 

Till on yon mountain top, that looks so cold and 

gray, 

Came forth bright stars that seemed to say, 
“Beware! I hold the shades of coming night.” 


20 


And dreaming thus, I saw the wings of Fancy 
dipped 

And bright hymeneal altars overthrown— 

I saw a woman weeping all alone— 

A beautiful woman, bright-clad and rosy lipped. 

I wondered vaguely what this might portend— 
This dream of sorrow—lonely grief. 

And then I knew our lives, however brief, 
Bring to us much of sorrow e’er they end. 

At first I feared this form which came to me— 
This form of woman shedding bitter tears— 
Was my own Love appearing through the years— 
Was my own Edith weeping thus for me. 

And then I knew that such could never be— 
That my fair queen could never thus be sad— 
My bright-eyed Edith, ever gay and glad, 

Could never thus be weeping—and for me. 

Sweet Edith dreams of fairy land 
Of gallant men by Cupid sent, 

Of pigmies thrown o’er the battlement, 

And smiles a knowing smile as she takes my hand. 

I would give the world if a friend of mine— 
And it were a proper thing to do— 

Should paint a landscape and in the view 
Some vague design of artless art entwine. 


21 


That I might tease her, asking why. 

Till some wild thought would seem to creep 
From my wandering brain as from a sleep— 

I would answer her laughing eyes. 

I should point to the shining crescent lake, 

And the faraway stretch of weary sand— 

And there’s a blue that never knew a mountain 
land— 

And the crooked curling road I should take. 

I should point to the river sliding down, 

Like a taper of wax, from icy peaks 
That pierce the heights where silence speaks 
To the low, narrow streets of the town. 

I should say that the mind has flights as deep 
And as high as rugged mountain side, 

And as broad and great as the world is wide, 
Till the flush on her cheek played hide and seek. 

I scarcely then should alter my tone, 

I should speak of the sea, of the ocean’s bride, 
Of greater worlds that above us ride, 

And comets that shoot through space alone. 

I should speak of gold and a thousand things, 
The brightest pearl so far beneath, 

And shells that build the coral reefs, 

And honor that sits on the brow of kings. 


22 


And were they all, all of them mine, 

I should toss them away to the singing breeze; 
I should scatter them out like the autumn leaves, 
For a thought or a word of thine. 

The summer is gone, and with the stings 
Of winter, a cold and barren pride 
Has grown to a courtesy which love divides 
Into as many parts as a harp has strings. 

When some great river’s sluggish tide 
Stops the course of a rattling car, 

Or the stormy waves of furious war 
For fording is too deep and bridging seems too 
wide, 

The mind the troubled waters span, 

And looks around for solid ground; 

And when the solid rock is found, 

He sees erect a vivid plan. 

Upon each side the butments rise; 

The middle arch with strength appears, 

That may exist a thousand years, 

And o’er the stream the army flies. 


23 


Not so the human heart when waves that beat 
High above the ship of life, whose slippery deck 
Lies bare and mastless waiting but another wave 
to wreck, 

For turn which way we will, there’s only cold 
defeat. 

And arguing thus, I see the apple-bloom,— 
And feelings that the soul might stain 
Fall bleak and cold as autumn rain,— 

Of freshness brushed away by gloom. 

And see the cold and altered eye 

That seems to cheat deception of her due; 

But underneath the outward mask we view 
That, seeming, hate alone is passing by. 

Oh, that love might hear the song of free wild 
birds, 

That I might send the truth by their bright wings 
To latch the door of hope when back it swings 
Alas! My wishes come to naught but words. 

The curling lip of scorn may not advance, 

Nor bend the bow that malice has in wait, 

Till whispering envy shuffles round to join the 
dance, 

And from the quiver takes the deadly barb of hate. 


24 


I see within the poisoned eye 
And accusation plainly traced, 

That confidence has been misplaced— 

And onward still the moments fly. 

She mates among my enemies; 

She scarcely bows when e’er we meet— 

And in my heart the fever heat, 

Till frigid pride my blood may freeze. 

Till colder pride has colder grown, 

I would stand and hear the babble of lies, 
And colder friends with flatteries 
From hearts as hard as stone. 

I wonder if words will wear away, 

By constant dripping, a foul deceit, 

And truth sink down in a life’s decay, 

And Faith grow up in a sin complete. 

As the thoughtless numberless feet that tread 
Wear great furrows in the hardest plain 
Were it of life would it not be dead, 

Which underneath but an hour has lain ? 

Stand by the cataract and hear its roar, 

And fear the power that bites the stone, 

And digs deep down its channel alone— 

All by its constant, unceasing power. 


\ 


25 


Its hands are as soft as my lady's are, 

And fingers with the velvet touch of moss 
That grows beneath where the pine trees toss; 
Or tall white planes of a burial car; 

It takes the solid stone in its mouth,— 

Like some great bear, with iron teeth, 

Cuts above, cuts beneath, 

And never stops through the summer's drought. 

A mountain ridge that stands in its path 
Is worn by night, is worn by day; 

And no matter what our philosphers say, 

It is doomed by the endless course of wrath. 

Stand still, my friend, and hear it roar, 

Canst thou measure the power of a finer thought, 
So fine that into your being is wrought 
An image or vision not known before? 

Now were an endless wave of scorn 
To roll mount-high toward the land, 

One I know should always stand 

At the stony point where the wave was born; 

And it should sweep the shells with its angry feet, 
Tear the turf from the sandy-lipped shore, 

And break the rocks till they were there no more, 
Would my own be there at the waves’ retreat? 


26 


Would she not fly to the sheltered wood, 

And there remain far out of the reach 
Of angry waves that surge on the beach, 

And life become a sullen, sultry mood? 

As for me, had I the power of ancient kings, 
Power to do what seemeth best, 

Power to call from east or west, 

With a trumpet call, to war till the whole earth 
rings, 

I should heap scorn for scorn, till faces were 
white, 

And angry billows ran along the shore, 

And men, in battle shock, forgot to pour 
Into a neighbor’s ear their angry spite: 

I should ride in a chariot of glorious truth, 

I should marshall my victors from victorious 
wars, 

And give them love for their honored scars,— 
I should give them drink from the fount of 
youth; 

And the voice of scorn would be silent and 
mute,— 

My love’s eyes would be opened and proud; 

She would not fear if she spoke aloud, 

Fear a hard and angry dispute. 


27 


But I’m not a king; yet in me dwells 
A spirit of a finer sight, 

An eye that can see in the night 
A tale that a false friend tells. 

Sooner would I have been born in the North— 
Better an honest Eskimo, 

E’en though his house be builded of snow, 

Than all that a liar brings forth. 

Better the cold pure ice, 

Where not a sound is heard, 

Or the voice of any bird, 

Than a heart that is covered with vice. 

Better to be on Siberia’s plain, 

And there for life to remain and gaze 

At fair Aurora’s brilliant blaze 

Than to be a friend with the spirit of Cain. 

Better to sup with carrion flies, 

Or, deep in the frozen zone, 

Tear flesh from the human bone, 

Than to fill your soul at a table of lies. 

Gold may lie for a thousand years 
Deep among the filth of earth, 

Without a stain upon its worth— 

I argue thus to cool my fears. 


28 


She’s the brightest, sweetest flower, 

One that I’d pick for my own bouquet, 

One that would not fade or wither away— 
Always as bright as the first, new hour. 

I see her surrounded by satelites. 

Some are as haughty and cold as the stars, 
Others as red as beligerent Mars. 

What can be worse when silence invites? 

If I should go and move from its place 
The one thing bright, the beautiful sun? 

The planet’s satelites would frantic run 
And jingle like bells in the race. 

Astronomy speaks of Saturn’s rings, 

And Jupiter’s heavens are filled with moons, 
And eastern climes blow fierce monsoons, 

And to and fro the earth still swings. 

And the mind has its circuit of empty air, 

And it, too, has its central sphere, 

Around which it rolls from year to year, 

And total eclipses sometimes there are. 

There are hands that float on ivory keys, 

And eyes that seem the gates of the soul, 
Shining out of the depths where thoughts unroll, 
And flash abroad like the sun on the sea. 


29 


Noah let slip from his cautious hand, 

A raven whose croaking I hear in the night, 

As it hops to and fro just out of my sight, 
Forever o'er a flooded land, 

A land of spoil—the spoiler’s prey. 

The reverend air of the cunning fox 
Makes stepping-stones of his orthodox 
Pouring the darkness of night on the light of day. 

No raven so black as the raven of lies, 

That an enemy’s evil hand let slip, 

On the sea of life from the human ship. 

And it croaks and cries but it never dies, 

Till your sweetest friend will look dismayed 
Trying to read your conscious face, 

Fearing the lines of guilt to trace, 

And half of your friends to be friends are afraid. 

The patriot who fearlessly sees 
The advancing foe’s immutable might, 

Dies struggling in the gory fight, 

Yet lives in his country’s memories. 

The gallant tar who stands erect 
Shouts aloud in his cannon’s mouth, 

And sweeps the sea from north to south, 

Lies still and cold on the silent deck. 


30 


We gather the names of heroic dead, 

And read them o’er our altar fires, 

And the marshall flame of our youth inspires 
When the names of the fallen heroes are read. 

Whom the foul and slanderous tongue may bite, 
In the crooked streets of a ragged town, 

Is trampled by malice and envy down 
Into prison walls, far out of sight. 

He feels the cold and chilling breath, 

And friend by friend will fall away, 

As melts the ice on a summer’s day, 

And about him clings the air of death. 

He wanders about in the paths of doubt, 

And feels the winter winds blow cold, 

While hueless clouds that, fold on fold, 

Drive and sift the snow about. 

He thinks he hears a boyish shout, 

Then Fancy hastes away in flight, 

In the cold and lonely winter night, 

And the taper light the breath puts out. 

And he thinks it were not hard to die, 

If that from out his grave might spring 
Which would scorch and sear like a demon’s wing, 
Till the earth took back a traitor’s lie. 


31 


I saw a giant tree that stood 

With the hurricane roaring about its base, 

But it would not yield, but held its place, 

Stood bold and firm through wind and flood. 

But a canker worm with a process slow, 

Little noticed, bites and gnaws,— 

With finest teeth it cuts and saws, 

And, vanquished, now the tree lies low. 

Within the spirit hurricanes are, 

That shiver the beech and break the ash, 

And tumble the oak with a louder crash, 

As wild as the spirits of earth and air. 

Should I grasp her hand, nor let it fall, 

As if I were in utter haste— 

As if it were a thing debased, 

You would hear the whispering echoes call. 

From the simpering set of parasites 
Who stand and watch to pick a flaw, 

And into the measures of ridicule draw, 

Would come a tone of pure delight. 

I have thought of this most beauteous world, 
If the bright June roses were multiplied 
And in a tangled knot of beauty tied, 

And the brightness of heaven to earth were hurled; 


32 


And some were found that I have found, 

They would walk as in a narrow lane— 

A blind man walking with a cane, 

Who sees no shadow on the ground— 

A lane that is paved with stocks and shares, 

And interest that is overdue, 

And gold crowds in between the two, 

Till death unloads his silver tears; 

And to hear the whispering words that call 
Remembrances back to when I saw 
Beneath the roaring waterfall 
Thick ice the summer could not thaw. 

Laughter goes upon the sense 
Of mysteries moving through the brain, 

A tolling bill sans recompense— 

The only song a broken strain. 

There’s an eye that pierces through the night, 
A brow that shades the darkest frown, 

A gushing spring that hides its light 
Deep under ground; 

There are mighty waves that mountains shock, 
And wear away their base of stone, 

Grinding to dust the jagged rock, 

Where now I roam in my boat alone. 


33 


But highest foam will dance and play, 
Rippling waves beat on the strand— 
Across the shallow waters lay 
The strangest shells upon the sand. 

The tall, mad waves will lash to foam, 
As if they fretted to be free— 

The heart unsatisfied will roam, 

Though it be under lock and key. 

Deep in my inmost soul I’d drink 
Nectar that the gods might take, 

And turning oft the flowing bowl, 

Wild fancies from the spirits shake. 

But drifting on from where I sleep, 

Close by the banks of Lethe’s stream, 

To sink alone where hands must creep, 
To wake me from a tangled dream, 

Voices from the ghost of Fate 
Come whispering echoes in my ear; 
They tell me that the world is late, 

And bear me closer to my bier. 

“False! False!” I cry upon the brink 
Of some deep precipice I tread. 
Whatever the strangest men may think, 
I’ll not be buried till I’m dead. 


34 


I’ll write them out and put the board 
On some crossroads where all may read— 
The vine that rears the hollow gourd 
Might be a king when such men lead. 

I clutch in vain at the passing hours, 

And woo them as a merry child, 

Where, half detained among the flowers, 

I see them flying through the wild. 

I take the thread that fancy spun, 

And thus I weave a fabric grand, 

That reaches upward toward the sun 
And lies so lightly on my hand 

That the wind, nay, even the breeze. 

That woos the sun’s departing rays. 

That tips the leaves upon the trees, 

Picks up my dream and flies away. 

But voices still—I hear them now— 

They say, “Decay, decay, decay;” 

And what I would I know not how, 

For what I hear the voices say. 

I heard a voice that said goodnight, 

A long and last goodnight to all, 

Then danced away, a laughing sprite— 
She’ll ne’er return though loved ones call. 


35 


I’ve heard a voice so smiling sweet, 

Would give a dirge a joyous tone, 

And, kneeling down before his feet, 

Would shake a king upon his throne. 

I walked beside the sea and mused, 

Of how full deep the pearl may shine. 

We know not what the world may lose 
So many feet beneath the brine. 

I often see the daintiest form, 

With trappings gay, and soft brown eyes, 

And my heart grows glad, my pulse grows warm, 
But before I speak away she hies. 

So light a form, with eyes that warm 
To laughter, and bright brown curls— 

There is no one could do you harm, 

My bright-eyed, laughing country girl! 

Sometimes I fear I know not yet 
That what the world may count as gains 
Is mixed with dross so deep we get 
Not half the measure for our pains. 

And when I turn to see the child, 

Now many years to manhood grown, 

That wandered with me through the wild, 

I see a stranger—not my own. 


36 


But once I knew a laughing child 
Who praised me when I walked alone, 

And now he speaks so soft and mild, 
Though on his head gray hairs have grown. 

The gentle heart has anguish still. 

The priest the quiet lamb has slain— 

And ground to powder in the mill, 

We find our golden grain. 

The stag that sniffs the tainted breeze 
Finds safety in his rapid flight, 

And shouting men behind he leaves 
To struggle on till falls the night. 

The hunted beast affrighted lies 
In some deep solitude alone. 

To still his beating heart he tries 
The sheltered side of some great stone; 

But e’er the morning draws her veil 
Across the deep and starry blue, 

The hunter’s voice sounds in the vale 
With all his strange and noisy crew. 

With that wild beast I stand at bay; 

With joy I see him choose a place. 

Among huge rocks that round him lay, 

Is everywhere a dauntless face. 


37 


I tremble now in wild affright, 

The baying hounds still nearer draw— 

I hope his horns might stay their might, 

That he might win by Nature's law. 

Of all the savage thoughts of men, 

Hath horror more than all the ten— 

Small vices that our minds disdain, 

The hunter's voice I will proclaim. 

I saw a child that ran away 
From toil 'mid the heated noon; 

And wandered far full many a day, 

And grew strange hearted all too soon. 

For women's eyes that look their light 
Since cradled in her own strong arms 
Felt, surely felt, the wanderer's flight, 

And knew he would meet, somewhere, wild 
storms. 

The poet sighs—his muse is dead, 

Or flown from him far aloft. 

Though fancies rare run through his head, 

Like tangled twine, they'll not run off. 

He sees dim visions round him lie, 

As midst the sea some mountain grand 
With stoney peaks that pierce the sky— 

He could almost reach them with his hand. 


38 


Yet, though he sail full many a day, 

Still o’er his bow the vision lies; 

And when he tries fine things to say, 

It vanishes before his eyes. 

To touch the fabled fount of truth, 

Cut loose the trappings of our art; 

Give back to age the hopes of youth; 

Pile up the stones that have no heart; 

Give Fancy rein; hold up the wand; 

Let magic bow before good will. 

This is of truth a fairyland— 

Thus was of old and is so still. 

When millions fed on Jordan’s plain, 

Who bear the record to other lands, 

Now biting winds sweep o’er the grain, 
Drift high the peaks of glittering sand. 

I have seen the place where Babel stood, 
And saw great Babylon round it rise 
To sweep the nations like a flood— 

Through all the land the captive cries. 

I saw its greatness shrink away, 

A shallow summer-heated! stream 
We build with stones we cut today, 

Which are but clippings from a dream. 


39 


Troy that cast her shadows tall 
Across the waters of the bay— 

If you find her now at all, 

You dig deep holes through miry clay. 

I have no choice, I seem to sail 
Without a compass; on I ride 
Like clouds that scud before the gale, 

With white foam resting on their sides. 

Till caught at last within the whirl, 

Where some huge power rides funnel-shaped, 
When consternation rules the world, 

And all with inky blackness draped. 

As some strong person paints a thought, 
Though half the vision may escape, 

Enough is told, the weak are caught— 

String up the harp and try the ape. 

Youth has spoke. The whispering breeze 
That lightly fans his favored cheek, 

Of life, of hope, of victory, of these, 

And these alone, the breezes speak. 

Manhood beats upon his breast, 

And hears strong winds around him roar. 

“I trust you not, far in the west,” 

He hears the distant thunder roar. 


40 


Chilling age draws close his cloak, 

Ye sighing winds, what do you hear? 

Ye are the winds my manhood broke; 

Ye speak of winds that would not cheer. 

Of childhood cradled in your arms, 

Of boyhood swinging from the trees, 

What do you hear with your alarms? 

Ye make me but remember these. 

Ye winter winds I would depart; 

The singing birds have southward flown. 
And lying still within the heart 
Unuttered thoughts of the unknown. 

Come, let me go. Yon faded leaf 
Hangs trembling to a sister’s stem, 

A brighter one lies far beneath, 

Low-trodden by the feet of men. 

And thus we hang while others fall; 

We see the earth around us wither. 

We shoot unscathed the waterfall, 

Still sailing on we know not whither. 

The trees put bright red glory on, 

Meeting death in proud array; 

But beauty with strength from man is gone— 
His locks of brown now turned to gray. 


41 


Fallen, faded, no other lock, 

The buoyant heart e’er long must fall. 

The fly that stings the apricot 
That grows beside the garden wall 

Hath happiness for one short day. 

But touched as if by frosts of spring 
In thickest ranks around him lay 
The blighted fruit now withering. 

Leap up, my heart, and let the day 
Show something of the nobler aim— 

Write out the words the loved would say, 
Shake off the thoughts that would complain. 

Ripple on, my little brook, 

Though pebbles sigh to see thee going 
Through many a wind and curving crook 
To where light boats are on thee rowing. 

Pick up the wild and woodland song, 

And bear it away to the foaming ocean, 
Spread wide and high thy banks along 
A river now in wild commotion 

Yet, little brook, what gain is there, 

To leave the green and quiet vale? 

Ye gather up a load of cares, 

Though ships should on your bosom sail. 


42 


Oh, little brook, thou bearest the heat— 
Above thee are bright birds that play. 
What gain is there though some proud fleet 
Should on thy waters sail away? 

Thou hearest many a woodland note 
From fluted birds or nightingales— 

What gain is there if on thee float 
A thousand sails? 

Could I take your hand, my little friend, 

I would hold thee with my stronger will, 
Wherever then our course should bend, 
We would not leave these wooded hills. 

Where thou goest now along thy banks, 

No more are heard the songs at night— 
From out tall reeds so course and rank 
Birds of prey will take to flight. 

Ripple on, my little brook, 

Among the tall and stately trees; 
Through ever-winding curve and crook 
You’ll pass no brighter scenes than these. 

A soft and tiny piping sound 
Came from the brook right up to me— 

“Of all the great bright world around, 
Here everything is dark, you see— 


43 


“A mossy bank on either side, 

With branches spreading overhead, 

What hope is there if I abide ?” 

Is what the tiny brooklet said. 

“Should I remain within these hills, 

Cooped within such narrow bounds, 

I could not kiss my sister rills,” 

Came from the little piping sound. 

“Although I hear the song of birds, 

And feel the deep and quiet shade, 

To be idle here I never heard 
For such a thing a rill was made. 

“And now, Good day. I would be going 
To where broad plains stretch far away. 

My breadth and depth increase by flowing,” 

Is the last I heard the brooklet say. 

In after years I crossed a bridge 

Where a strong tide sweeps through broken arches; 

Where the mountains, ridge on ridge, 

Rise o’er the plains the hot sun parches. 

Old and gray, stood the broken towers, 

While many nations rose and fell ; 

Till time refused to count the hours 
Of which old legends were alone to tell— 


44 


Hours of the grand old time 
When Caeser marched to conquer Gaul. 

From year to year he told in every clime 
How red-handed war advanced from fall to fall— 

Into the deep, dark regions of the German wood— 
Met there the fierce barbarian horde— 

That rang with famine and cries for blood, 

And ceased not till broken every Roman sword. 

And the river to the rivulet said, 

“Since hoary-headed time began, 

I have seen yon mountain’s stoney head 
Rise high above the weary plain. 

“And on my waters, ferried o’er, 

I’ve seen a million glittering spears; 

And in my depths have buried more 
Since wrinkled time has counted years. 

“With both flanks upon my banks, 

Hand to hand the battle shock, 

In the centers serried ranks 
That seemed the very solid rock. 

“By charge on charge the desperate foe 
Hath crowded into bog and fen; 

Defeated, in my stream they go, 

And under sands I bury them. 


45 


“I rush along unheeded still, 

And see green pastures melt away, 

As clouds that cut across the hill 
Discharge their mist in rain today. 

“The cities grand, the toiling swain, 

Have paused to hear my torrent roar; 

The suicide with wandering brain 
Sinks in my waves to rise no more. 

“I was old ere these gray arches 
Stepped like a foot in my stoney bed; 

And the wind that sighs among the larches 
Is my oldest friend,” the river said. 

“I sweep away cities, I cut away ridges ,* 

In my fury I dash the boat on the sand; 

The great stone ledges, the support of the 
bridges, 

Are scattered like chaff o’er the land. 

“And down from the hill, 

And down from the mountain, 

I drink up the rill 
And lick up the fountain; 

“I roar by day and I roar by night; 

I cuff the sand in my stoney bed; 

I am awake at the purple gleam of light, 

For I never sleep,” the river said. 


46 


“When winter comes, a crystal sheet 
Is spread across my billowy breast; 

But underneath the waters meet 
And glide away without a rest.” 

Home! A year since I have heard that name. 
Who of my friends have been laid low? 

Over whom do the daisies grow? 

Who hath gotten wealth or fame? 

A year! And the mad seas round us roll, 

And death-like terrors seize the helm, 

And tall waves strive to overwhelm 
And drive the ship beyond control. 

A year! Time for the mind in its highest state, 
To wander from its close and cunning walls; 
To leap forth at strange, fantastic calls, 
Leaving the heart alone and desolate. 

Time for an evil name; 

Time for the bright-eyed boy, 

The mother's pride, the mother's joy, 

To return with a crown of shame; 

Time for bondsmen to be free; 

Time for all great actions love inspires 
To cool revenge or angry fires; 

Time to cross and recross the sea. 


47 


A year! Time for the pivotal earth to turn 
And shake away its crystal snows, 

And dip its mountain-tops in silv’ry glow, 

And gaze with its broad polar face at the sun; 

Time for peace among its olive trees 
To fly far away from a troubled land; 

Time to rise and strike a tyrant’s hand; 

Time for hope’s decay, which is worse than all of 
these. 

Sweet to the farmer is harvest’s gathered store; 
Sweet is childhood’s voice and happy song; 

Sweet to the free is Columbia’s fruitful shore; 
Sweet the patriot shout that rolls along. 

Bringing succor to the o’erworn few, 

Bearing back the victorious tide of war. 

Sweet is the infant’s life that bubbles new, 

Like the fount of love which naught can mar. 

Sweet the? voice of conscience in the heart; 

The love of truth—our being’s life and flame; 
The angel-smile that lingers after death; 

The honored life that bears a spotless name. 

We live to feel the breeze that woos us now 
Creep through our thin hair, gray and old; 

Fire within the heart grows cold 

With time’s rude fingermarks upon our brow. 


48 


If some white marble statue should arise and gaze 
So pure and snowy white, I could not fear 
That warm red blood ere runs so near 
A chaste, fair, and crystaline blaze, 

And I should seek to dip in feeling’s fount, 

A heart o’erwrought by argument, 

Not knowing by whom or whither sent, 

Throwing all mad speeches out of count, 

Would the statue bow its graceful head? 

Would it not stand erect in its place, 

And stare with its cold white eyes at my face, 

Till I’d fear my heart, like its heart, were dead? 

Were a human face as cold and white 
As the marble that stands in the entrance hall 
To hear a despairing brother’s call, 

Would it answer the call through a stormy night? 

It is fair! it is fair! the marble hand, 

Bound round and doubly faced— 

A marble hand in a marble case— 

A lovely thing in a lovely land. 

Is the blood cold because the face is fair? 

What stern principle underlies 

The form that speaks with beauty’s eyes? 

Is it chiseled from ice, with a frostwork of hair? 


49 


I have read of a magic vial poured 
Into the vaporous air of a heated room, 

And the cold and chilly wraith of gloom 
Would drip its frost on table and board. 

Edith has a chamber in her heart of hearts, 
And if some rude tale in underbreath 
Would, whispering, say of sweet love’s death, 
Would not a frosty pallor spread a thing of art? 

And the face of a simple girl be changed 
Into doubt and fear where truth will hide 
And shrink into a tortoise shell of pride, 

And the life of life be all deranged? 

I have seen again her quiet smile. 

It seems the very morn of life, 

New-born from angry war and strife, 

To shine o’er a new world from mile to mile. 

So bright I see the morning rise, 

Sweet joys seem waiting for the day; 

But o’er the sun the cloudlet flies 
To dash the happy dream away. 

I trust not aught that time may bring; 

I count not on one future hour— 

A moment may dethrone a king, 

An instant, and is plucked the flower. 


50 


Mind of might, pierce through the veil, 

Right up the wrongs of vain pretense; 

Move on, proud ship, spread wide thy sails; 
Thou hast alone true confidence. 

A soldier coming through the breach 
Tells that an army is o’erthrown; 

And little lies* linked each to each, 

Can forge a chain of strength unknown. 

I feel the rosy morn of youth 
Fly westward toward the setting sun; 

And slower still the pulse will run, 

And brighter shines the face of truth. 

Paint me but one bright sun in the skies, 

One for me that will never set; 

That will shine for me until I forget 
The deep, cold snow that around me lies; 

Till my spirit melts as the melting snow, 

And from out a deeper solitude 

Are born the thoughts that now intrude 

And o’er our joys their baleful shadows throw. 

Rise, rosy morn, still down in the East; 

Spread out thy wings o’er the dreary skies 
Till the cold and twinkling stars shut their bright 
eyes 

And the shining noon hears not of love’s decease. 


51 


Touch again with magic hands 

The fevered brow of a sanguine youth; 

Smooth out the tangled threads of truth, 

Till envy’s whispering tongue defenceless stands. 

Deep in Russia’s wilds will rise 
The hunger-stricken pack to roam 
O’er the white snow, with whiter foam 
About its jaws—with famine eyes. 

Not more unequal here alone 
To meet the famished brood of death 
With empty hands; or, with a breath, 

Move the ice from the frigid zone, 

Than to catch a falsehood as it flies, 

And hold it firm and pin it down, 

Smother it out in country or town. 

If the tongue be false, it is long ere it dies! 

Beauty is queen, so let her reign, 

As flecks of foam and sifting spray 
That on the dancing waters lay, 

As light and as bright as the broad daylight 
Or visions that float across the brain. 


52 


Capture the wandering words that fall 
From a rosy mouth, from rosy lips, 

Where Cupid his sharpest arrows dips; 

Then from his bow let the arrows go 
On a message of woe, 

Till he comes again at sweet love’s call. 

Beauty, with her clear-cut face and laughing eyes, 
Sunning herself in an ivory chair, 

Binding in golden braids her hair, 

With words as meek as violets speaks— 

Beauty, with roses in her cheeks— 

Till her lover despairs and away he flies. 

Thy spirit is a subtle flame— 

Advance with thy shining crown; 

Tumble the idols of avarice down,— 

Let an altar be built to an honored name. 

Beauty that is warmed with the heart’s best blood, 
Warmth that beams from speaking eyes— 

On the soul a shower from Paradise— 

Who will not hear what is false, or fear 
Even an enemy’s evil sneer, 

But brave through winter’s storms and spring’s 
fell flood. 


53 


But I fear the clammy hand of death, 

The winter’s spirit in the thickened air 
That around the couch of sleepless care 
Doth rise and shake its snowy flake 
O’er fell and brake, 

And the sleepless sleeper may pass as a breath. 

Here is woe, Fair Cherub, eyes new from 
Paradise, 

When conviction climbs through rugged steeps, 
And courage away into silence creeps, 

And the fields are brown and the moon looks 
down 

On country and town, 

As cold and pitiless as death’s cold eyes. 

Though I stand like a desolate icy peak 
That glitters aloft like a frosted crown, 

I will not mourn. Though hope’s gone down 
To the dreamless deeps, I shall not be weak. 

Edith, Love, Hope, go thy way; 

And when dreams have faded and the truth 
Shines back upon a wasted youth, 

Commune with the ghosts of a former day. 

For the thoughts of the past will dwell with thee 
As thou near’st the waters of Lethe’s stream, 

And the pageant of life, like an ugly dream, 
Shall trouble your mind till you cease to be. 


54 


That you'll know no griefs that will summon 
tears 

Is the prayer I make for your life to be— 

I ask that the future will hold for thee 
More joy than was given by life’s long years. 


55 


SUMMER RAIN 


Thou, Oh gentle showers, 

Hast wooed me many hours 
With thy sweet refrain; 

Thou hast given birth 

To the brightest things of earth. 

That follow in thy train. 

I do not fear thy moods 
Though thou com’st in floods; 

But I welcome thee again 
After dreary winter snow— 

After north winds cease to blow 
Across the frozen main. 

I love to hear the sound, 

Above the parching ground, 

Of the distant cannonade. 

My heart with joy is filled, 

And my soul is thrilled, 

And the hand of Famine stayed. 

Oh give us, gentle rain, 

Of thy blessings—naught of pain; 
Stay the evils that may roam. 

Not half a recompense, 

If thou wert banished hence, 
Would be our home. 


56 


FANCY AND THE BUTTERFLY 


Come, butterfly, 

And let us try 
A fairy flight together— 

Though you may frisk ’neath sunny sky, 
I roam in any weather. 

Your wings are bright, 

Your body light; 

You float and dip at pleasure; 

But Fancy has a farther flight 
To where there’s many a treasure. 

In cloudy days, 

In falling sprays, 

Your presence is lamented. 

’Tis then that Fancy ’tunes her lays 
And sings her song contented. 

Evening’s chill 
Cold dews distill— 

Your flights are not repeated; 

But Fancy takes her wings at will 
If cold or summer heated. 


57 


When winter’s here 
You disappear, 

Never to return; 

But Fancy sings from year to year 
With chance of praise to earn. 

Come, little fly, 

Be gay as I, 

Though brief the life that’s thine. 
While Fancy has her wings to try 
I never shall repine. 


58 


THE BLIZZARD 


In a large and crowded town, 

Where great dark walls above you frown, 

Where streets are threaded by a throng, 
And many know not fear of wrong; 

Where souls are dead as are the leaves 
That fly before the winter’s breeze— 

There lust and greed retain their thrones 
Built high above with human bones— 

And strangled dead within its maw 
Include the righteous and the law. 

Within this prison-house of hell 
A Christian family chanced to dwell— 

Little Alice and her man, 

So said the worshipers of Pan. 

So strong was he with courage bold, 

He little value placed on gold; 

But toiling always day by day, 

His thick brown hair was turning gray. 


59 


The fierce hot blast, the heavy mould, 

Had left their imprint on his soul. 

Sometimes a fever caught his brain, 

To be a free man once again. 

Had you seen him on that day 
He left the street and went away, 

You’d not have guessed this man the same 
Who with wife and health to the city came. 

Fortune came to increase their joys 
With the dimpled hands of two little boys. 

They went from the depths of curses and sin, 
With the light of hope burning brightly within, 

Out where the breezes untrammeled blow, 

Where the brightest of flowers uncultured grow 

Out into the free wild prairie they go, 

Far from the evils of sin and woe; 

Out where the hills, with a carpet of green, 

Smile up at the sky with the valley between. 


60 


Here they have come with the summer’s wild 
breath, 

Not dreaming it may change to the shoutings of 
death. 

Oh, Ignorance! Curse thy black mantle of sin! 
Thou killest the heart that tremblest within. 

The boys were off with the spirit of men, 

Though Robert was six and William but ten. 

The snow being hard-trodden afforded a track 
To lead them to school and guide the way back. 

Oh, list to the sound now passing away, 

Like the roar of a lion leaping onto his prey. 

The driver lays whip and hurries along. 

School is dismissed in the midst of a song. 

And now a wild terror, that creeps over all, 
Seems to foreshadow what is to befall. 

Robert and William, running fast through the 
field, 

Were caught by the storm without shelter or 
shield. 


61 


With William to lead, with Robert behind, 

They tried the hard path, though the snow made 
them blind. 

It turned their coats over them, froze ice in their 
hair. 

In a moment they were wandering, no one knew 
where. 

Several days later, their bodies were found 

Ten miles from the schoolhouse, the snow heaped 
around. 

The searchers could find but one’s track through 
the crust 

For all those ten miles, so believe it they must— 

That William carried Robert through the fierce 
cold, 

Nor stopped he to rest nor to loosen his hold. 


62 


FAITH 


Have faith in God, 

For by His hand the stars were set— 
Although the fields have lost their green, 
He is watching o’er us yet. 

We love Him for his constant laws, 
Blessing all, e’en the unjust; 

And for His greater promises 
To raise our bodies from the dust. 

Let not anger seek revenge— 

Other thoughts the mind should fill; 

For e’en the purest in their hearts 
Must see the need of mercy still. 

God has given us all the world, 

Life and every gift that’s rare; 

And, over all, His promises 
Of brighter things beyond compare. 

Let not sorrow or gloom abide— 

Christ has come in very truth, 

A Messenger of Peace to men— 

Alike to aged and to youth. 


63 


RECONCILIATION 


Though thy smiles are bright, 

And the face I am leaving 
Fair as the sunlight, 

Thou still art deceiving. 

For women’s wiles are deeply laid, 

Obscured within some mystic shade. 

Can I believe your words are true? 

That you intended all things fair, 

When the things I thought I knew 
Are just as light as summer air? 

There’s a proverb in my head, 

“Beware of women,” I think it said. 

But thou art so fair, 

And thy word so archly spoken, 

Did I doubt you anywhere 
My heart were surely broken. 

Away with proverbs! Let the book-worm eat 
them. 

Gastric juice alone can beat them. 


64 


WINTER 


Go! frosty visitor, go! 

I’m tired of thy cold embrace, 

Tired of thy icy face, 

Hidden so deep in the snow— 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 

Go ! frosty visitor, go! 

Thy arms are far too chill 
For e’en the trees on yonder hill. 

Why do you linger so? 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 

The flowers have been dead so long; 
And the bird forgotten his song, 
While the piercing winds still blow— 
Go! frosty visitor, go! 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 

That the earth may see the sun, 

And the rivulets wake and run 
Till the flowers rise and blow— 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 


65 


Go! frosty visitor, go! 

Go with thy icy breath, 

Wake from the bands of death; 
Thy hand is heavy with woe— 
Go! frosty visitor, go! 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 

I'm tired of thy soulless eyes, 
Of thy heavy, leaden skies. 

Why will you linger so? 

Go! frosty visitor, go! 


66 


SLEEP 


Voices, come to me when I am asleep, 

Come in your softest tones out of the deep. 

Learn of the siren the sweetest and best, 

Soft as the wavelets when sinking to rest. 

Closely around me, light as the dreams, 

Gather about me thy fanciful beams. 

Alight on a form and gild it with glory, 
Brighter than aught we have read of in story. 

Sing such a song that the pilgrim, when hearing, 
Would turn from his course, though the shrine 
he was nearing. 

Weave it about me, which no one can tell, 

How deep is the spirit, nor where it may dwell. 

Let the song glide away through the gates of the 
West; 

Fall like a Lotus drop, sink down to rest. 

Leave when the ruddy beams pierce through the 
blue, 

And return with the darkness, thy peace to renew. 


67 


ENDEAVOR 


Young eagles from their nest must fly, 

On treacherous winds their wings to try— 
Or sit and die. 

Stars of heaven must open their eyes, 

And twinkle through the bluest skies, 

Till fancy flies 

Far through the heavens, beyond the light, 
Where silence reigns 
Deep in the night. 

Love within the human heart, 

Bound round with fashion, pride and art, 
Cannot depart, 

Like nectar, wine of gods we think— 

But what good is it 
Unless we drink? 


68 


LINES TO H. 


I know of nothing half so bright 
As, dancing in the morning light, 

Are my fair H’s eyes. 

She is sweeter, 

And completer 

Than the rest. And if I could meet her 
I should give her one surprise. 

I should tease her, 

Strive to please her, 

And perhaps I’d tell her lies. 

There’s wondrous wealth down in the mine, 
And things above that are divine; 

But her, pure gold cannot outshine. 

She is fairer, 

She is rarer 

Than the rest. Could I ensnare her, 

Then my hopes would rise. 

But my tale is broken 

With more than half unspoken, 

When off she hies. 


69 


She’s just the brightest, sweetest thing, 
A wind-flower of early spring. 

Would that I could half her merits sing. 
I’d caress her; 

Heaven bless her— 

If only she were mine! 

Oh, the grace of her, 

And the face of her— 

They surely are divine. 


70 


EXTRAVAGANZA 


Though I may walk where angels tread, 

On streets of gold, 

And with the spirits of the dead 
Sweet converse hold, 

Yet, if I knew thou wert not there, 

For all these things I should not care. 

I would turn my back upon the throne, 

Tread down the weary path alone 
To find the lost, 

Regardless of the cost. 

Though I were in some dungeon hidden, 
Away from sun and God’s pure air, 

Accused of some awful thing forbidden, 

Till whiter than a ghost had grown my hair, 

Still, if through some cranny, crack or shutter, 
The softest whisper you should utter, 

I should rise from behind my prison wall 
Though all the demons of the place 
Held me in thrall. 


71 


THE OLD YEAR 


Thou art gone to take thy place among the dead; 
Thine eyes are closed; the soft touch of infant 
fingers 

Tremble on the fading senses, and thou art gone 
To a far, vague realm where traditions tread 
Close on the flight of Time to linger 
But a moment and fade away to utter silence. 

Thou art alone. Thou hast seen the new year, 
Born of hope and crowned with immortelles, 
Usurp thy throne and force thee farther from the 
shore 

Where actions are. The noisy shouts we hear 
Are not for thee. The growing day impells 
Thee ever farther into that strange land 
Where silence and oblivion reign supreme. 

The bright flush is gone—thy cheek is wan and 
pale, 

The breezes that wooed thee and the bright birds, 
The flowers that grew and blossomed in thy prime, 
Offer their cold bare stems within earth’s pale. 

No living thing is here just now to bid thee longer 
stay, 

Save those who know that soon they’ll go with 
thee. 


72 


The voices that knew thee— the voices of laughter 
and song, 

Thou shalt hear them no more— they are gone 
from thee. 

Thou art a part of that which has been, 

And thy funeral car moves even now towards 
Oblivion’s gate. 

Thou art a soldier in the army of the Past— 
Thou shalt wander in the dim corridors of time 
Till annihilation, with its mighty sword, makes 
war on thee. 

Those who loved thee in thy May-day bloom, 
When thy locks were brown and thou wast stirred 
By the fiery flood that poured like a torrent 
through thy veins, 

Have passed away at the first touch of thy 
declining youth, 

And when thou, in thy November rage, 

Blew thy shrill blast across the plain, 

They were not found by. Never more 
Shalt thou see the violet, primrose, or the daisy 
blow; 

But wrapped in thy self, the cloak of death about 
thy limbs, 

Shaking thy gray locks at the inconstant shriek of 
winds, 


73 


The mad whirl of busy days. And thy successor 
With new-born strength doth crowd thee ever on 
And cry to thee, “Move on—away forever!” 

The aged grasp at thy vanishing garb, 

Sad at seeing the funeral march of Time. 

And those to whom thou hast brought peace, 

And the jewelled words of true love sparkling, 
Still through the radiant summer yet to be 
Shall speak and sing of thee again. 

And I, even I, who have seen and felt 
The joys and sorrows of thy better days, 

Cling to thy memory and wander forth alone, 
Dreaming of that which still may never be. 


74 


CONTENTMENT 


I see the light of circumstance 
Play round me in fantastic dance; 

And when I try to grasp the bliss 
Elude me like a will-o’-the-wisp. 

I’ve toiled onward up the steep, 

To gain the top and there to sleep. 

What joy at last is there to rest 

Where eagles alone should build their nest? 

Up so high, we miss the flowers— 

Beneath us fall the cooling showers. 

Half way up the rocky side 
Many a traveler here has cried 

For one to lend a helping hand; 

For one below on the level land— 

Were it not better to rest content. 

And never make another ascent 

For clear blue sky and bright, bright stars, 
Or golden west and deep red Mars? 

Are they better than growing trees, 

The bloom of flowers and hum of bees? 


75 


All above is hollow, hollow. 

Better the life of the skimming swallow; 

For round and round he circling swims 
About the lakelets’ pebbly brims. 

But ever anon the lake he leaves, 

And like a reaper gathering sheaves, 

Oft to the farmer's barn he hies, 

And into a nest of mud he flies. 

Then over the lake and over the river, 

And over the branches that under him quiver, 
He blesses the Author of life, the Giver. 


76 


THE DROWNED BOY 


Oh Boy, why art thou so cold and so silent, 

With thy skates on thy feet, and thy resolute face, 

Like a soldier whose fate has been tragic and 
violent, 

But who died with his sword in its place? 

No scorching flames caught thee, no warrior in 
battle, 

With strong arms of comrades about thee to 
save— 

Alone with the river, thou heard not the rattle 

Of drums, nor the shouts of the brave. 

Had’st thou the hand of a friend to have stayed 
thee. 

To hold thee one moment above the dark wave! 

But thy voice now is stilled, for the river betrayed 
thee, 

And sent thee within the dark grave. 

Dear boy, thy cares and thy worries have left 
thee— 

Unmolested among the strange dead thou shalt lie. 

Though the treacherous river of life hath bereft 
thee, 

Thy soul has but journeyed on high. 


77 


LITTLE EFFIE 


Little Effie smiled at me one cold March day; 
But when the harvest came she lay 
In her bridal robes wedded to death, 

All in silence, for her breath 
Went with her spirit, far, far away. 

Who can tell where Effie goes? 

Whether harsh and cold the March wind blows? 
Whether her joyous heart goes out in play, 

Just as it did on that cold March day 
Of dreary, wintery snows? 

I saw her buried; saw the earth 

In cold, damp heap—saw her age and birth 

’Graved on simple monumental stone; 

Heard the yielding cypress moan; 

Saw her empty chair at her father’s hearth. 

Who shall say she lies in dust? 

That naught remains but her pictured bust? 
’Twas as her spirit that lived and wrought her; 
fame, 

The one identity that carried her name, 

Can never corrode or yield to rust. 


78 


WHAT A CLOUD SAW 


I 

From island home, deep in the sea, 

I rose upon the western breeze, 

And cast my shadow on the deep 
Where far below strange monsters creep; 
And far aloft, on downy wing, 

I drift o’er lands of ’ternal spring. 

II 

And oft my messenger, the rain, 

I send upon the parching plain. 

The plants raise up their drooping heads 
And bless me from their lowly beds. 

The roaring rivers wildly spread 
As I look down from overhead. 

III 

The pilgrims hurry on the road 
As if I carried half their load. 

I see the lion leaping, fall, 

And into his lair with a victim crawl. 

I see the robbers slyly creep 
From out their caves along the steep. 


79 


IV 


I see the hunter farther stray 
As those at home for his safety pray. 
In anger and pain at the ruin wrought, 

I tied my hair in a tangled knot 
And shook it out with a burst of tears 
That felled the oak of a thousand years, 


80 


SPRING 


I stand upon a drift of snow, 

And see it from me northward go; 

Among the cold and leafless trees, 

Spring up the wild anemonies. 

And now come up from out of the south. 
Come as from an oven’s mouth, 

Warm winds that shake the yielding bough, 
And yoke the team upon the plow; 

That bring the cat-tail on the willow, 

And soft white foam upon the billow. 

And now upon the broad, broad earth, 

Ten million beings come to birth. 

Now bright as fancy e’er can weave, 

In a perfect shower, come out the leaves— 

With fields that er’st were brown and bare 
An emerald green would not compare. 

And in the heather, wild, or wold, 

A brighter picture will unfold. 


81 


Tis true that nature from her sleep, 
’Mong stony rocks where ivies creep, 

Since first awakened from dull earth 
Each year has seen a second birth. 


82 


THE DRIFTING BOAT 


Oh, little boat without a sail, 

What tempter lures thee on to ride 
Far out to sea where roars the gale, 

Alone without a hand to guide? 

Now laughingly thou ridst the foam, 

Sporting in this shallow bay; 

But angry winds will surely come 
And bear thee many miles away. 

I see the sparkling sunshine fall 
Upon thy light and trembling prow, 

And it makes me think of a death-white pall 
Upon a maiden's brow. 

All night thou shalt hear the breakers roar, 

And bid adieu to the glittering stars, 

As wave on wave shall tumble o'er 
The seething, foaming bars. 

Oh, little boat, who trusts the waves, 

What hope hast thou to land, 

When the strong right arm that could thee save 
Lies buried in the sand? 


83 


CITY OF THE DEAD 


I saw a phantom city swim 
Above the horizon’s dusky rim. 

Broken and ruined were its walls; 
Deserted were its castle halls. 

Over toward the city’s gate, 

A traveler halted, tired and late,— 

With tattered garments—wan and lean, 

A cadaverous look and a selfish mein. 

A miser counting o’er his gold 
Passes the gate. No more is told. 

A sailor entered, whose stalwart arm 
Has failed at last the wizard’s charm. 

His voice is still; the ocean’s roar 
Is hushed for him forevermore. 

I saw a dreamer careless tread 
In and out among the dead. 

I saw a priest in flowing gown 
Chanting Te-Deums through the town. 
And now I see a phantom people 
Pouring from hall and church and steeple. 

With visage grim, in lines they drew, 

Then marched away, this phantom crew. 


84 


THE RIVER 


Haste, O river, haste to the ocean. 

Heed not the crowds that rush on thy banks. 

The cities that rise—disturb not thy motion. 

But leave them there, thy tribute of thanks. 

Dash o'er the cataracts. 

Rush through the mountains. 

And when the cannon cracks 
Release the deep fountains — 

Cease not thy roaring 
While the eagles are soaring. 

Pause not at all for sun or for shadow. 

Nor the wild birds that scream o’er thy rippling 
breast; 

Flow on in thy course through field and through 
meadow, 

Though the world is asleep, thou knowest no 
rest; 

But ever pursuing 
A phantom that's flying 
Thy motion renewing 
When thou seemest near dying — 

Cease not thy roaring 
While the eagles are soaring. 


85 


Heed not the seasons—nor summer nor winter 
Can charm thee to rest or delay thee at all; 

Even crude ice thy torrent will splinter; 

And nothing can stay thee, whatever befall. 

Pour through the shadow 
Of mountain and tree, 

Through the quiet meadow 
And on to the sea — 

Cease not thy roaring 
While the eagles are soaring . 

Cease now, O river, cease for an hour; 

Hush thy mad current amid the rough stones, 
For one is gone down, lost in thy power; 

And now we beseech thee to give us his bones. 

But the river, unceasing. 

His waves dashing high, 

His current increasing, 

In anger goes by; 

Nor will cease roaring 
While the eagles are soaring. 


86 


A LEGEND 


A legend is told in an ancient town: 

Despite of wind and weather. 

Deep groans came up from under ground; 

And all the wisest men were found, 

To reason and put their heads together, 

And write down the cause with quill, or feather. 

Then it chanced if ghost it was— 

As it often happens ghosts will do— 

It seemed of sudden to change its laws 
Without apparent reason or cause, 

For all the magic horns they blew. 

But not a sound beneath the dew. 

So they gave their opinion ’twas imagination. 

And drew their arguments from ancient sages, 
That noise was its own creation, 

And especially groans was in that classification; 
And they labored hard through hundreds of pages 
Worthy to be remembered throughout the ages. 

So it was settled, to convince the people 
A convention should be called right on the spot; 
Then in the shadow of the old church steeple— 
While beside the old bell stood a man with a 
beetle— 

That those who have the time and place forgot, 
Might cast in their chance among the lot. 


87 


Sadi Neversmile, a very grave and ancient senior, 
Who found an Indian stone hatchet, (coolly said) 
That had made great change in aspect and 
demeanor, 

Had heard a comet whizzing by, and thought he’d 
seen her; 

Had drawn a discourse like an engine up a grade, 
To dispell all doubts which he said was by error 
overlaid. 

How the great words were lost among the trees, 
None remains at present time to tell: 

But that the discourse was learned every one 
agrees, 

For not being understood how could it fail to 
please ? 

And’t would have been a great success as we shall 
tell, 

Had not a very strange accident befell. 

A wag, who tenanted underground, 

Was not there by accident, you will allow— 

He’d been the cause of all the mysterious sounds. 
Whose ingress and egress had not as yet been 
found. 

Our hero in reaching after when and how, 
Thought to turn objection down as with a plow. 


88 


As a river, forming from a thousand streams, 

To one great head and to the ocean flows, 

So our sage had brought from every section fact 
and dream, 

And every ray of seeming light gave in its beam, 
That he might in one great swoop to the sceptic 
show, 

And that all might from the premise to conclusion 

go- 

So when our friend was at his best, 

And even the whitest ghost was turning brown, 
A deal of time being consumed among the rest. 
Our wag grew tired in waiting for his jest — 

A groan came up from under ground: 

“Gag the fool and send him down!” 


89 


THE NIGHT OF LABOR 


What if I have lain unnoticed and dull, 
Styled by the passer-by, the idle drift 
Of an unknown age of oreless rift, 

Nameless all, save a rotting skull ? 

A skull to be sought after with curious eyes, 
Startled, amazed, that an idea might grow, 
Co-habiting here with a thing so low, 

Till a million aspens will answer the cry; 

And a contempt bel born for a noble good, 
And a light be blown from a rocky head, 
And a ship of truth shall find its bed, 

And error bring forth its craven brood. 

Shall I despair because a star 
Shines above me in the hollow blue? 

If a face be fair, if it be not for me, 

What care I if it be near or far? 

What care I for a jewelled queen, 

If I be not her king? 

If I be not the one sole thing? 

Measure or measureless the distance between. 


90 


What care I? Since the world began 
One hath danced while the other played; 

One hath run, the other delayed; 

One a planet, the other a sun. 

Would it be strange if some fair goddess 
Upon a passing cloud should ride, 

And I should bound up to her side ? 

Where should the world find its redress ? 

And she were pleased, and the earth would hold. 
The world might stammer and frown; 

The laugh of ridicule would not bring us down. 
And they were praised for being o’er bold. 

And yet a sullen fear— 

A traitor in disguise, 

Distilling his liquid lies— 

Is pouring in my ear. 

Fables, fables of half a truth, 

Strange things that one sees 
In the wine and in the lees, 

In the wild and hasty steps of youth; 

Till I doubt the cunning eye, 

And doubt and reason and guess, 

And fill my soul with distress, 

And pull and heave at the stones that lie 


91 


Heavy and covered with frost, 

Stones of unmanageable dread, 

Fashioned and weighted with lead, 
Ground by the ocean and tossed, 

Ground by the ocean of grief; 

And into the trough of the sea 
Tumbled and rolled to the lea, 

And waiting fair winds for relief. 

If I could have one day, 

One day of quiet to think, 

And unto my passionate love to link 
Fair thoughts that bloom in May, 

Remembrance of youth would be sweet, 
Whatever the world might gainsay. 

Yea, if Truth had her way 
All would be well and discreet— 

But Oh the toil, with never a rest, 

Never a rest for the weary feet, 

Never a smile on the faces we meet— 
Only to hush the great world in our breast. 

Time, they say, doth right all things— 
Were it so, it were hard to wait; 

But time is a miser and often late, 

And sometimes folds his wings. 


92 


Always to see the sun arise, 

And hear the shrill whistles blow, 

And whatever we do 

Not a moment to spare or devise; 

Better to live on a crust— 

No time to love or to woo! 

Only the heavens are shining so blue, 

O'er one all covered with dust. 

Could I see the heavens shake 
And fall, and tumble the world, 

And things that are vain into nothingness hurled— 
False pride into infinite splinters broke; 

And out of the wreck might see arise, 

Full strong in the new-awakened life, 

Manhood renewed from the strife, 

And hushed forever false cravens' cries. 

Verily, a time shall come 

When virtue shall sit on a throne— 

Rest for the weary who travel alone, 

'Mid the rattle and rustle and hum; 

When the dust and coroding of toil 
Will be first in the new-wakened land, 

And the rough and sinewy hand, 

Redeemed from the earth and the soil, 


93 


Will guide the rude powers of earth, 

And liberty be more than a name, 

Then the rich and the poor shall together 
proclaim 

The glad day that brings it to birth. 

I saw 1 her today passing far away, 

Passing I know not where. 

Why should I wonder or care? 

I am but the commonest clay. 

Yet, if I met her alone, 

I know she would not be ashamed 
To greet me. And who were to blame 
If she dropped me a curtsy unknown 

To the gaping eyes of the town? 

And the bond of fear roll away, 

And I feel almost happy and gay, 

Careless of smiles or of frowns? 

But a day will dawn of woe, 

And false pride will rise like the sea 
And dash its cold waves over me, 

And into the breakers will go 

My idol, the darling of earth. 

Though she be never so kind, 

The grinding of water and wind 
Would crush sweet love at its birth. 


94 


The cold winds of fashion and pride, 
Whatever their name we may call, 

Select—distinction—the sum of them all 
Is baseness, which nothing can hide. 

Ever to toil on and on, 

Never to choose me a mate, 

Till the love in my heart turns to hate— 
Ever to rise before dawn, 

And creep by the tall, somber walls 
Before the day has begun, 

Afraid of the light of the sun, 

Afraid the spirit that holds me in thrall 

Might see me, and I be undone, 

In garments my mother had made— 
Garments that wrinkle and fade— 

And I be the laugh and the fun 

Of those that have and to spare, 

I am sure she would not be to blame, 

Or laugh when they mentioned my name 
But tangled and caught in a snare 

Of ridicule worse than mad war, 

Might pass from the court and the green, 
And the light of my soul and the queen 
Be worshipped alone from afar. 


95 


Why have I stayed to creep 
With ever the clank of a chain 
Forged by a miser; and lain 
In the gutter filth of the street? 

Picked from the ups and the downs 
Of a world at war with its kind, 

The spirit crushed out and the rind 
Cramped and wrinkled and brown? 

What if I fly away to the west, 

And gather the red rays from afar; 

And dip my feet in the seething bars, 

And heap upon heap in a golden chest? 

And bow, strut and stammer and stare, 

And fashion myself to the simpering smile, 

The soft little nothings the simple beguile, 

And fashion my garment and cut of my hair ? 

And look with contempt on the sodden earth, 

And have no care for the weary feet, 

And the famished eye of hunger I meet, 

And wonder how nature could bring such to 
birth?— 

Starving for the deathless soul, 

Starving to death with a street full of bread, 
Starving for sympathy in which they were bred, 
Bound by fetters beyond their control! 


96 


Cage the lion, his eye of fire grows dim; 

He thirsts for the shade 

Of the o’erhanging rocks or deep everglade— 

And man’s weakness is death to him. 

Thus I feel I would be better alone, 

Better the rocks and the caves and the open sky 
above, 

Better the bright stars and the open sky to love, 
Than to trust to a being without sinew or bone; 

A being to be flattered and turned like a vane, 
Turned and twisted by cunning lie, 

Never to search the reason why, 

Ever to be deaf to the loss and the gain; 

Ever to be deaf to the passionate cry 
Of truth as it staggers and falls, 

Pierced by mad hate as it creeps and crawls, 

Till in whispering corridors it runs and flies. 

Flies till echoing walls will answer its cry, 

Till painted bauds, as they walk in the street, 
Will whisper together of things indiscreet, 

Till the cancerous growth will live, not die— 

Live to spread like the fatal tree, 

Live to be told by honored worth, 

Believed by millions not yet come to birth. 
Wherever man is, there will it be. 


97 


But I must bide, for I have lain 
With a phantom, and felt the pulse of a hidden 
world, 

Untaught, germ-like, cracked and curled, 

In the folds of a wandering brain. 

Yet if it might be I were stronger, 

For the hope in the cunning brain, 

Mocks you with fancies wild and vain, 

Yet the noblest gift thus to man belongs. 

Why was I born thus to see 

The first peep of coming dawn, the bright ray 

Streaming from the great sun of day? 

Glorious power which is not for me! 

A day which is not to be, and sullen night, 

Shall come again, and passion die, 

And like a weight will smothered lie 
On a spirit broken and out of sight. 

Why should the torch of love be lit 
And break to a heated flame? 

Were I foolish, were I to blame, 

If things were unseemly, if things were unfit? 

Were it not better the naked bare wall 
Than a palace with an empty name? 

Naked and bare walls within the brain— 

Sweet love’s palace we may call. 


98 


To it the outward things where we dwell, 

Rough sense of touch and colored hue, 

Though not to be moved where ere they grew, 
Either to laughter or to tears— is it well ? 

But what is hid between the cunning walls— 

Fair bower where love is born and reared— 

To poets, painters, and passions still endeared, 
Where man inhabits though from other heights he 
falls? 

Is it well to worship created things, 

Imaged first on man's immortal part, 

Conceived and born before transfixed in art, 

To exalt the subject above the king? 

This is real, the creative mind; 

Reflected things are cold and dry. 

Worship the real and pass the shadows by, 
Eternal center of love divine. 

This is worshipful, the human soul, 

All the beautiful first imaged there, 

Then wrought with skillful hands and care, 

Into wondrous forms both strange and manifold. 

But cold the marble statue stands, 

Ever motionless will look and stare; 

No thoughts of all the burdens we bear, 

Nor offers you her cold white hands. 


99 



The kiss of death, the cold white lips— 

To worship a motionless marble breast! 

Better the hard hand of toil be pressed, 

Than touch of cold white finger tips. 

Flow on, oh river, to the sea, 

Hide thy secrets in the briny deep; 

Flow on while millions dream and sleep— 

Sing to thy ceaseless flow, oh false heart, and be 

Lost like the river lost in the tide 
Of the deep-flowing river, borne along, 

Unheard of men amid the great throng, 

Till anger and love thy heart will divide. 

And a furious war be stirred— 

Unhappy gauge, unfruitful plain— 

Warfare where true love is slain, 

Hushed to silence but not interred. 

I heard the linnet singing so gay, 

Singing alone in the maple tree, 

Singing of love( for what else should it be?) 
As the sun rose up o’er the eastern sea; 

Singing that now, now is the day, 

For this is his marriage morn. 

The happiest day since he was bom— 

Chatter and pipe till the day goes away. 


100 


I see the sunflash on the sea. 

Many white sails creep upward to the shore; 
And some we know lie buried evermore. 

And other sails we know not where they be; 

Sails that make the pulses throbbing beat, 
The warm blood flow and flush the face, 

And run to the beach in trembling haste 
To see the waters in vain retreat. 

Fancies haunt like a dying face, 

Cling, though mem’ry writhe and toss, 

As the lichen clings to the wayside cross— 
Lowly fancies, dark and base. 

Parasites cling to the mouldering oak, 

And fasten their fangs. The roaring winds 
Will break and crumble its sapless rind, 

And cover its withering branches and choke 

Till it points to the sky with its cold bare stems, 
And its trunk is hollow and divided with seams, 
And birds of prey from its branches scream 
Their weird and grotesque requiems. 

It resists no more the furious gale, 

Leafless and fallen, lying prone, 

Unsepulchered here in the forest alone— 
Above a low monotonous wail! 


101 


Oh, parasites of the brain and blood, 

And passion holding with its vice-like grip 
To the arm of the pilot that guides the ship, 
Confounding the terms of evil and good, 

Confounding all terms to a selfish end, 

No matter how often we tumble and trip, 

Or how often from the cup of folly we sip 
All things to our great self shall tend. 

To see the yellow blossomed field aglow 
With all the warm sun’s summer day, 

And the leaping waterfall dissolve in spray 
On rocky heads far, far below; 

While in the tree-tops far beneath 
The fanning breeze plays hide-and-seek, 
And twittering birds that seem to speak 
Of happy flight o’er sunny heath! 

And I who grappled with man’s estate 
From the cradle, and cramped with toil, 
With burning thoughts that seethe and boil, 
That higher things might compensate; 

Not that I might sit above and wait 
On high with jewel-fingered scorn, 

Peeping down at the lowly born, 

Reaping a harvest of endless hate. 


102 


Can we rob the sun of his flaming hair, 

And spread it abroad like a golden net, 

And catch the lion as he lies in his lair, 

His strong feet into the meshes set? 

Can we spread the curtain that falls from the 
moon, 

And mend the holes where the shadows are, 

And hold it there through the heated noon, 

To save the world from the sun’s bright glare? 

Or tear with our hands the robe of night 
That settles with mournful silence down, 

And open again the world to delight 
A hundred million in country and town? 

Can we throw a line to the Pleiades 
And drive them up through the starry blue, 

And hurry them on just as we please, 

Regardless of what other stars may do? 

Can we blow our breath on the mountain crest, 
And all the waters come rushing down, 

And all the peaks where the snow has pressed, 
Stand out naked, bare and brown? 

Or catch the pearls that shine in the dew 
And weave them all into silken braid, 

And harness a runaway comet or two, 

Till the world would wonder how they were made ? 


103 


Then why should I lie awake 
Dreaming of a better time, 

Turning and tumbling a sickly rhyme, 

Deeming myself still able to break, 

Break my fetters ? Could I do all this and more, 
Were there poured into my veins something liquid, 
perchance, 

That would run through my blood and in my heart 
dance, 

Like a demon of fire never heard of before; 

And all my heart's blood were burned with the 
heat, 

And every pulsation consumed with the blast, 

Of the furnace wherein my being was cast, 

And all this were true, and nowhere deceit, 

And my own identity changed to a nun, 

Mumbling her prayers at her chapel gate, 
Having in her heart neither love nor hate, 

Then it is possible the thing might be done, 

And I become a stupid clod, 

Turning a crank for a millionaire, 

Not knowing or caring how others fare, 
Despising myself and forgetting my God. 


104 


Had I the eloquence of smoothest speech, 
Phrases that leap sweetly from the tongue, 

I might strike some chord of truth unsung 
As yet, and thus the truth might teach. 

When mind from mind can nothing gain— 

No wider views of life be found— 

Then error’s cause will grow more sound, 

And truth, thus blasted, fade and wane. 

Can a counterfeiter ply his trade 
In a land where money is unknown? 

For each contention there’s a bone— 
Something from nothing ne’er was made. 

Could I lie upon the shore 
And hear the surges, beat on beat, 

Then I, within a safe retreat, 

Might laugh to hear the breakers roar; 

Might laugh to hear the crackling tempest fall. 
And another deluge fall, of tears, 

That never could be righted through the years 
For those who come not when we call. 

What little yet might turn my soul to hate ? 

If only I might kiss the rosy mouth of youth, 
And there imprint impassioned words of truth, 
A newer life in me create! 


105 


Give me the rude, rough hand of toil,— 

Visions of the perfect day fly onward still; 
Dazzling brightness, go when you will, 

While I pass on to sleepless moil. 

The great, deep song that’s never heard by man, 
The rythm of the soul’s decay, 

Worn and ground out day by day— 

Is it the wiser or the better plan 

To fancy? Oh child, ’mid the rumble and roar, 
Bury him deeper than sexton and spade, 

Deeper than ever a body was laid, 

And to dream of spirits all drenched with gore. 

Is it better to bury a man in his garments of sin ? 
How sickens the life, the spirit, with pain 
At the crash of the wheels now roaring for gain, 
A Moloch consuming the living within! 

Imagination, with her two-fold wings, 

Flying ever in the circling heights, 

While conscious yet my soul’s delight, 

With scenes as fair as aught the world might 
bring, 

While both waking and sleeping have dared 
To waken thoughts of manhood in the brain, 

And hope to rise from out a grave of pain, 

That the promise of love might yet be spared. 


106 


Mind not the torture of unreasoning sense, 
Bear up the burden, not let it sink 
Deep into thy soul, for thou canst think 
Of noble deeds which yet can recompense. 

For what is life but a waking dream? 

The soul is far away upon the steep, 
Because the body below is asleep, 

Waking only to hear the young eagles scream. 

Dreams! And the wished-for lieth still 
Far beyond in some fairy bower. 

Longed for only through the wondrous power 
Of the unseen magic quill 

That writes for the soul some higher aim, 

And ever inscribes as we make the ascent— 
On more lofty peaks the eye is bent. 

The old and the weak, the blind and the lame, 

Go stumbling onward, till through the mist 
Of thought that half uncovered lies, 
Advancing still, while upward flies, 

With little gain, whate’er we list. 

Oh that a day might dawn with less of woe 
That I might break this ambling gait 
Of slow desire, and no longer wait 
For fears and doubtings from my heart to go; 


107 


The sun come forth and brightly shine, 

That true love, frozen by the winter's snow 
Of false pride, might live and grow, 

And hopes that are vanished be once more mine! 

What use that secret sorrow clings 

To a mouldering past, fast crumbling into dust? 

That which glittered now is sordid rust— 

Each scented flower holdeth that which stings. 

Ring wedding bells, for one may die, 

And never hear that merry sound; 

Ring up the spirits under ground, 

And hear the mockers pledge a lie; 

Hear the reckless tongues repeat, 

A hapless soul in fair disguise— 

A specter ever croaks and cries 
And gives a victory to defeat. 

What cormorant might swallow up a thousand 
men, 

And feel their rough and gray bed husks go 
sliding down— 

Whose swelling bulk would gorge the town, 

Till crowns were lifted up where kings had been? 


108 


Such a one to scrape the heavens above, 

And spread his net to catch a falling star, 

That shone so bright for me although so far— 
As strange the screaming hawk should mate the 
dove. 

And I who thought to draw the dagger from the 
sheath, 

To see the wind e’en toss my lady’s curls! 

But these my soul in yonder crouching whirl 
Of mad men grinding life between their teeth— 

And years, too, have made a charge; for I shall 
pass 

To harsher tones and let them die away; 

As pipers only pipe for pay, 

So when I see, the ghost of happiness will turn 
the glass. 

Thus I see that I am growing old, 

Philosophy, sitting like a crown 

Upon my head, knocks all my idols down— 

I am ready now to do just what I’m told. 

And thus I muse and wonder what will stay. 

The maddening course of time still rushes on. 

We touch the extended hand and it is gone. 

What matters it if we an hour delay? 


109 


The fancies, hopes and cares of youth, 

Have fled away to other homes, 

To dance about like white seafoam, 

To hasten on the march of truth. 

In youth, with sanguine heart, I longed to roam 
’Mid olden scenes—when I was yet a boy; 

Go forth to search for ancient Troy— 

But now I guard an empty home. 

Now youth is gone, alike my health, — 

I hardly recognize myself; 

To me no charm exists in mundane pelf; 

I have no uses for my wealth. 

In youth before me visions flew, 

And hopes before me brightly lay, 

Hopes deferred for many a day, 

’Mid scenes as fair as ever grew. 

Swift speech is lagging on my tongue, 

My soul with passion doubly wrung; 

Now I’m wealthy but so old 
I have no uses for my gold. 

A crippled graybeard passing by— 

Complaining to himself he talked, 

A dirge-like melody as he walked, 

Discordant as the raven’s cries. 


110 


And silks may rustle and diamonds blaze, 

And empty fashions an idol make 
Of one who smiles and smiles, though hearts may 
break, 

Till happiness flies onward with the days. 

I see the wreck of all my dreams 
Go drifting by, and with the tide 
Far out upon the ocean ride, 

Till farther drawn by current and stream. 

A face that yet seems passing fair 
Stretches a hand all ringed with gold, 

But now I see it’s stiff and cold— 

What matters it? Why should I care? 

Pass onward now, the laughing jest 
May ring its changes on my name, 

And folly wrestle still with fame— 

’Twill wake no echoes in my breast. 


Ill 


MY SAILOR LAD 


A sailor lad, so blithe and gay, 

Would sail away, would sail away; 

And ever his little willful boat 
Round and round would circling float. 

Where he was born, in the quiet dell, 

A thousand times he bade farewell, 

When mists that thickened calm and dark 
Unconscious turned his adventurous bark. 

Of such action none could tell, 

Or what had wrought the mystic spell, 

Till cupid, caught within a flower 
That grew beside a maiden’s bower, 
Revealed at once the magic power. 


112 


THE PROMISE 


Watch, maiden, watch the eagle in its flight 
Drop and fall from his element; 

The bright moon rise on the western shore, 

And things that have not been since the ocean roar 
Was heard far up those rocky peaks, 

Whose bald and blistered sides are covered o’er 
With frosty age, far up into dim silence bore. 
Thou may’st see the flight of time, arrested, stay 
forever, 

With the buoyant heart of youth; 

And sunshine fall upon his golden hair, 

Till trumpets blasts be blown and chaos reigns; 
All nature fall away to nothingness— 

Stranger things: The lover from his mistress flee 
away; 

And faith in man grow blacker than eternal doom. 
When all has faded from the beauteous world, 
And the cold and withered planet, earth, 

Flies onward through the trackless space, 

The words I speak to thee today shall stand; 
When all is silent in the starless heavens, 
Immortal love shall kiss thy dreamy lips 
And wake thee in another world, 

Where walks eternal youth. 


113 


THE BIRD 


A bird there is, flies always in the upper air, 
With toil and pain, 

As if there were no better place, 

While beneath the grain 
Is wasting on the plain. 

Ever fasting above the clouds, 

In frosty air, 

Where, wrapped in everlasting shroud, 

The rocks declare 
That death is there. 

So high above the fields they rise, 

With toil oppressed, 

Into the stormy skies, 

When they might be blest 
On the earth, and rest. 

There, through every season without change, 
They ever fly. 

What seems still so very strange: 

Naught else, they will try, 

Till they drop and die. 


114 


TO H. 


If I could lift the veil 

And see the spirits robed in light 

Around the throne, 

With no more night, 

If I found not thee, not these alone 
Could fix my sight. 

Had I the power to scale the dome, 

O’er Alpine peaks, 

At will to roam 

Through the endless realm where fancy seeks 
To make her home; 

And owned the surface of the world, 

And all the dew 
Were solid pearl, 

Yet I would not care whether figs or thistles 
grew, 

Save for one dear girl. 

If I saw the green hill rise to view— 

My native land— 

’Mid shouting crew, 

If one came not to take my hand, 

What should I do? 


115 


SERENADE 


Light of the stars, silvery gleam, 

Haste, haste to her bower. 

Wake her not now, 

Come not again, 

Disturb, disturb not her dream. 

Come then, awake, 

I will whisper sweet words to thee, 

I will whisper sweet words to thee. 

Luna, awake, let thy mild beams 
Lead her, lead her to hear; 

Let thy soft beams into her dreams— 

Love, love is my prayer. 

Come then, awake, 

I will whisper sweet words to thee, 

I will whisper sweet words to thee. 

Chorus 

List, list, list to the wild birds singing, 

Hope is sweeter than fear; 

Wild, wild, wild are the strains that are ringing 
Come this way till we hear. 


116 


AUTUMN STORM 


Cold, cold, cold, the pitiless rain 
Hath emptied the starless heavens above. 
Blow, oh ye winds, howl and shriek, 

Till ghosts are frightened out of their graves; 
Howl and shriek and screech and roar 
Till the dark black gates of night are closed; 

Till the ragged rags of the desolate poor 
Are sifted and seamed with frozen rain. 

Pray, oh pray, ye innocent ones, pray, 

For the houseless wanderer out in the street. 
Alone he stands 
With naked hands, 

And knows not a face in this broad land. 

He has been feeding swine, 

And around him twine 

Sad memories of a better time. 

Howl, ye winter winds, and pour 
In torrents down your icy sleet. 

Howl and shriek and screech and roar, 

Till the dark black gates of night are frozen 
white, 

And the hands and feet 
That lie in the street 
Daylight shall meet 
Cold and stiff forevermore. 


117 


IMPRISONED 


Thou that bearest with soft hands, 

Like a new mother, the rounded arms of in¬ 
fancy, 

My great burden bear with thee to the land of 
shadows, 

Where we walk hand in hand with the bright¬ 
er things 

That inhabit the land of dreams. 

To thee we speak, there is no malice; 

Thou comest in thy approach 
As softly as the touch of infant fingers. 

The bright halls where beauty walks supreme, 
Thou fliest, to make thy home with me. 

These damp walls that were a loathing but for 
thee, 

Bar me not when in thine embrace. 

The hand of man hath been a snare to me, 
Who shouted loud at freedom’s call, and bared 
A freeman’s bosom o’er dismantled walls, 

And heard the shout of victory ringing through 
the towers. 


118 


APRIL 


April comes to laugh the snows 
From off the fields, 

And to hear the roar 
Of cataracts dashing down their floods, 
While they unceasing roar 
Forevermore. 

To send the robin from her southern clime 
She northward flies, 

Making happy friends of former years, 
With brighter eyes 

To watch the skies. 


119 


WINTER’S COMING 


Winter, thou art icy cold. 

Silence bids thy hand go forth 
With bearded icicles in thy hold, 

From out the frozen North. 

Thy sword is drawn, life decay, 

Crypt and crisp within thy fingers— 
Warmth and beauty go their ways; 

And woe betides who too late lingers. 

The wildest birds see thee and fly 
Far to the sunny South, 

We hear the whole earth cry 
Within thy icy mouth. 

Ferocious beast, be still, 

Lay thy stiff paw beside thy frozen mate 
Migrating birds, speed, speed thy quill 
Or thou wilt be too late. 


120 


THE DEAR OLD WOODS 


The dear old woods, thy haunts betrayed, 
Hath many a hardy axe-man stayed. 

The sturdy Yeoman’s fields advance, 
Crowd forward like an avalanche. 

The giant poplar proudly stands, 

And beckons us with spreading hands. 

I pass him by this very year, 

Before the time his leaf is sear. 

Some ruthless hand about his waist 
I plainly see the girdle trace. 

I turn across the narrow field, 

Shrunken like my boyish dreams, 

Or like shallow rivulets that feed 
The summer heat upon the stream. 

I sit me down within the shade, 

And wonder what has changed the world, 
Nor think what deeper lines are made 
Were time’s strange manuscript unfurled. 


121 


I have a melancholy mood 
That softens all my inward pain; 

I would not pass the meanest good 
For all the world may heap of gain. 

I listen to the rhythm of years, 

Unnoticed past the shingly bars. 

Nothing sweeter is than tears, 

Nor worse than angry words and wars. 

Here, angling through this very wood, 

Thy voice like the chime of a silvery bell, 
First woke my fancy into dreams 
Which stir the soul to music; and well 

It burns with fire to thaw the frost of age; 
And here, alas! I learned 
The wandering use of words, 

And this the first of all my songs, 

The music that I heard. 

Then I would repeat a song, 

Of a beautiful bird with a silvery wing, 
Whose voice is heard 
Like the voice of spring, 


122 


Calling the violets out of the deep, 

Calling them out of their quiet sleep; 
Chasing the butterflies, 

Calling the crow 
Out of the Northland, 

Out of the snow. 

Oh, beautiful bird, 

With thy silvery wing, 

Whose song is heard 
Like the voice of spring, 

Beating all nature back into tune; 

Chasing the snowdrift, healing the earth— 
All that is beautiful 
Then has its birth. 


123 


THE MARCH WINDS 


March winds come and go. 

Let them blow. 

So you and I have place to go— 

Be it so, 

Let them blow. 

March winds never cease, 

Bring us peace! 

For you and I will love increase— 
Never cease— 

But still increase. 

March winds come and go. 

Let them blow. 

So winter goes with melting snow— 
Be it so, 

Let them blow. 

Idle tales March winds do tell 
O’er moor and fell, 

While you and I are safe and well— 
Let them swell, 

O’er hill and dell. 

Marc|i winds, I’ve heard the tale: 
Deep in the vale 

A southern bird brought in the mail. 
A ship we hail— 

Rough March must sail. 

124 


THE JIMPSON WEED 


The sunflower shook his golden hair, 

The thistle boasted without fear, 

Indian corn, with a stalking air, 

Rose up and shot him in the ear. 

Such trifling things when plants fall out— 
Such strange complaints were heard; 

The peach tree blowed, the spring it squalled, 
The maple shook his arms; 

The potato vine for mercy bawled 
At the very first alarm. 

The lily and the iris grew, 

Likewise the frog, 

Tired of that chorus crew, 

In single file on a log. 

Two rabbits played a little game, 

A hog stuck in his snout; 

But a Jimpson weed down in the lane 
Quickly bowled him out. 


125 


THE PET RABBIT 


They put poor Bunnie in the cutter, 
And left him there today. 

He was the nicest little fellow 
That was ever dressed in gray. 

Bunnie, Bunnie, little Bunnie, 

What have you been doing today? 
“I have been,” said little Bunnie, 

“In the meadow eating hay.” 

Bunnie, Bunnie, little Bunnie, 
Where do you stay tonight ? 

“I will stay,” said little Bunnie, 

“In the cellar till the light.” 

Bunnie, Bunnie, little Bunnie, 

You scarce can draw your breath— 
You are sick, my little Bunnie; 

You frighten me to death. 

Bunnie, poor little Bnunie, 

Laid him down to die— 

You are dead, my little Bunnie, 

You cannot hear me cry. 

Bunnie, Bunnie, little Bunnie, 

You are buried in the ground— 
Never shall my little Bunnie 
Any more be found. 


126 


A LITTLE FAIRY 


A little fairy, 

Light and airy, 

Came dancing by,— 

Said, “How do you do 
To all of you,” 

Then began to cry. 

She said a spider 
Had defied her 
At her door; 

His hands were strong, 

And very long— 

She could go there no more. 

Then a little elf, 

As big as herself, 

Said he would defend her; 
He’d spread that spider 
A little wider 
Over the fender. 

So he flew, 

As boasters do, 

Right into the danger; 

For that spider caught him, 
Bit and fought him, 

Like a horse in a manger. 


127 


THE SNOW BIRD 


Little birdie Naked Feet, 

What do you find there to eat? 
Hopping, hopping in the snow, 

You must be very cold I know. 

See your little legs are bare— 

No shoes, no stockings anywhere. 

Come in to me, it’s very warm; 

No one here would do you harm— 
Snow and ice seem your delight. 
Wonder where you’ll stay tonight? 

Hopping, hopping off you go, 

Why do you love winter so? 


128 


WRITTEN FOR ROSE 
FOUR YEARS OLD 


Little Dimple 
Had a pimple 
Right upon her nose. 

What’s the use? 

Was her excuse, 

When told to don her clothes. 

Her nose will last, 

For it is fast, 

Right between her eyes; 

She goes to school 
Just as a rule, 

And seldom cries. 

She has her hair 
Done in a pair 
Of little braids; 

A dress that’s tight, 

And very bright— 

When worn it fades. 

She ran away 
The other day, 

While washing dishes; 

She did not look, 

Fell in a brook— 

Scared the little fishes. 


129 


While she was dripping 
From the dipping 
In the stream, 

A man passed by 
Who heard her cry, 

With a team. 

So little Dimple 
Wet her pimple, 

Then she went to bed; 
Pulled up the clothes 
Above her nose, 

And covered up her head. 


130 


THE BABY 


Bettie is a little girl. 

She has no hair, not even a curl, 

For she is a baby two weeks old— 

Now take care or mother will scold. 

I can't hold her, she's so small; 
Mamma is afraid I'd let her fall. 

I wish I'd been here when she came— 
The little stupid don't know her name. 

Mamma says it’s better than mine— 
Mine’s a doll and awfully fine, 

With nice pretty hair— 

And I don’t like it, and I don’t care 

What mother says; it isn’t fair 
To find fault with my dolly, Claire. 

Mamma says the babe will be 
Someday just as big as me. 

Mamma thinks her baby’s best; 

But I tell her to go west. 


131 


THE BEE 


There was a little bee 
As small as you could see 
Sipping honey from the flowers 
All the sunny hours. 

And he fills a bag with honey, 
Worth a bag of money; 

This bee is a doctor too; 

And carries a little lance 

That would make a school-boy dance 

And turn him black and blue. 

He has a little socket, 

A kind of an inside pocket, 

And a scabbard too has he, 

This pugnacious little bee. 

If you touch him with your finger, 
Don’t hold it there or linger 
While you are him caressing, 

Or your finger will need dressing. 


132 


THE KITTENS 


The old cat said mew-mew, 

The little kittens said so too. 

Maud, she found them in the barn, 

In a nest so nice and warm. 

They are blind, they cannot see; 

They can't tell it’s you or me, 

Or if the cat is their own mamma 
Or another cat we call their grandma. 

But then we know they’re awful nice. 
When they are big they’ll catch the mice. 
See how soft and fine their hair— 

Nothing like them anywhere. 

Kitty, kitty, what’s your name? 

Now you must be growing tame. 

I will never whip or scold you, 

But in my lap I’ll gently hold you. 

Irving is too little—he would wool them, 
Catch their little ears and pull them; 
Therefore he shall not have any— 

Can’t you see there aren’t many? 


133 


When they grow big I think I’ll take them, 
Hitch them to a sled and break them; 

Drive to town and get some candy— 

Won’t that be so nice and handy? 

And I shall bring home things for mamma, 
And haul the kindling in for grandpa. 

I’ll feed my kittens lots of cream 
And they will make a dandy team. 


\ 


134 


THE RABBIT AND THE FOX 


A rabbit met a fox, and away he ran 
Through tangled copse, as rabbits can. 

The fox, in his wisdom, thought he knew 
Another path went straighter through. 

So off he went with furious vim 
But the rabbit was there ahead of him; 

And the fox’s face was a little awry, 

And he winked a bit to a passerby, 

As if he would say, “This racing and running 
Is about played out. With a head full of cunning, 
I think I will try what virtues in tricks— 

I will cease this wrecking and pounding of bones, 
And brushing of feet on the hard, rough stones. 

“I will cut me a coat and the ears I will fix— 

The ears of an ass would be about right, 
Trimmed off on the edges and sewed on tight; 
My tail, I will roll it up like a ball, 

And on Mr. Rabbit I’ll presently call; 

“I will jump about,” said he, “like a rabbit, 

Just to get myself used to the unnatural habit.” 
One thing he forgot in his pantomine show 
Was the huge-looking tracks that he left in the 
snow. 


135 


Hopping and jumping, though the night it was 
late, 

The rabbit would not open, nor come out at the 
gate. 

“You may be a friend, but it surely is shocking, 
The size of your foot and the length of your 
stocking. 

“Besides, you yourself, if you anything know, 
Should be surprised at the track you make in the 
snow.” 

A great eagle was flying, at the break of the day, 
And saw what he thought was a rabbit at play. 

So he dipped right down and lifted that fox 
Clear out of the brush and over the rocks. 

When he was sailing higher than ever, 

A body was lifted by flintlock or lever. 

The fox had time for some grave reflections— 
We fear bad words and wild interjections 
Against false coats or disguises of mind 
Though they be better than the original kind; 

And he made a vow whatever his luck was, 

Not to personate rabbits with whomever his truck 
was. 


136 


SCHOOL-BOY 


I never knew a blockhead at school, 

A real, genuine dumb-fool 

That did not have some sly notion 
Of superior grace of wit or motion. 

Or underneath his checkered collar, 

Or in a head guaranteed “not holler.” 

Snugly stowed in some safe corner 
Of his opinion, like little Jack Horner, 

That however backward in his studies, 

Or cold or slow his blood is, 

He could take a long vacation, 

And in the end come out at the head of the nation. 

Always late among his fellows, 

A voice like a pipe-organ bellows; 

And always in his class is heard, 

In drawling tones, “What’s the word?” 

And at the wished-for word, recess, 

Pricks up his ears— he’s at his best. 


137 


THE CHILD’S INQUIRIES 


What makes the sea so deep, mother, so very 
deep? 

That it may hide the pearls that dazzle our sight, 
And keep its secrets far from the light; 

That it may roll its waves so mountain high 
They go on and on and never die, 

And leap the land for very joy— 

Is the reason—my boy. 

Why does it look so wide, mother, so very wide? 
That the sorrowful tales it has to tell 
May be softened by many a hummock and swell; 
And ere the anxious watching be over, 

And tidings be heard of the longed-for rover, 
That it may grow calm and mild— 

Is the reason— my child. 

What gives the sea such a roar, mother, such an 
awful roar? 

It is voices of millions gone down in the deep, 
Moaning together in their sorrowful sleep. 

Oh, what a day when the angel shall stand, 

One foot on the sea and the other on land. 

And the roaring you fear 

Shall be hushed forever, my dear! 


138 


ALLEN AND BEATRICE 


Allen is a farmer’s son, rich in manly gifts. 

He loved the fields; the puny things that tempt 
the young to waywardness 
For him had no power, but of that feeling which 
lifts 

The soul above meaner things, his share would 
bless; 

For his share was a double portion. Yet the 
bitterness 

Of man’s unhappy lot may sometimes turn 
The noblest minds. He could not brook distress. 
At the story of wrong the fire would burn, 

So that from his face you might the story learn. 

The rosy-lipped darling of his childhood’s days, 
Dreaming in the springtime of her maidenhood, 
Saw the smooth surface of the lake which lay 
Backed by the green field, and here the green 
wood 

O’erhung the very margin of the lake. She stood 
And saw the squirrels running to and fro 
In playful mood. She dropped a stone, which, 
hurtling 

O’er the precipice, fell into the lake below— 

But hearing no sound she thought to nearer go, 

And watch the circling waves retreating from the 
shore. 

One step she took and, leaning o’er the abyss, 

139 


Saw beyond a solitary boatman ply the oar; 

And through her being a momentary thought of 
bliss, 

That it might be Allen, but with this 
Thought there was a vague uncertain pang, 

For had not Allen of late been cold, 

Grave, and sober? His voice that rang 
So cheerily, on each syllable seemed to hang. 

A moment’s thought, a dreaming revery, 

A vision: a great sea monster with fiery eyes, 
That rushed and bellowed and seemed to draw 
One-half the lake. Afraid, she vainly tries 
To raise herself and regain her footing. There 
lies 

In the skill of man no remedy when, 

The footing lost and the body swings 
Into abyss below, and as helpless as in a bog or 
fen, 

Some great weight lies, or lamb within the lion’s 
den. 

A swift descent, a scream—and all is still, 

The ever-widening circle rippling sings 
To the smooth surface just beyond, and fills 
The air with a quiet moan that seems to ring 
Like the tolling of a funeral bell as it swings 
To and fro in some old ivied tower. 

Could we but understand the secret springs 
Of all actions—accidents—and the strange dower, 
Premonition gifts, that lie beyond our power, 


140 


We might understand why Allen chose to ride 
That morning to a neighboring town, 

But, feeling unwell, had turned his horse aside, 
And leaving him tethered on the quiet down, 
Gazed upon the gaunt hills, bare and brown. 

In melancholy mood he wanders by the shore 
Of a small lake, and seeing there a boat, 

It pleased his mood to try the oar, 

And there was seen, as mentioned heretofore. 

Now, Allen was a poet born; in truth, 

Had tried his hand at making rhymes when but a 
boy, 

And now that he had passed his earliest youth 
Strange fancies that bewilder and annoy 
Moved him, and he did not understand. The joy 
Of outward things had had their use, 

To break his melancholy mood and stir 
His soul to action and call a truce 
With strange vagaries and things more sound 
deduce. 

And often would the name of Beatrice, 

Spoken, startle him as if a cloud 
O’ercharged should suddenly release 
Its fiery car and the thunder’s rattling sound 
Mingle with the fury of the wind, 

Concealing the uncertain cause. 

One name alone, and that to him divine, 

Ran through his verse in almost every line. 


141 


That power that over-awes the spirit— 

Some call it passion, but another name 
Would suit as well perhaps, but to clear it 
Of all doubt, and to hear no lame 
Definitions limping about, that none may blame 
We will introduce a stanza or two 
Of his own creation that you may know 
Something of his melody, as doctors do 
Take symptoms and prescribe for you. 

This found upon a fly-leaf where he wrote it— 
How it chanced into my hands ? Let this suffice: 

I have full authority and right to quote it; 

And that there may be no sudden surprise 
That might cause lockjaw or otherwise 
Injure some unlucky reader, will say 
That the better portion has been lost 
Or in some strange manner gone astray, 

We fear, never to see the light of day. 

How he chose the measure of this narration 
May to some seem a little queer — 

There are many things we take on mere probation, 
And stranger things, occurring every year, 

Fail to excite either love or fear. 

Fair Goddess, Love, sit with us while we 
invoke 

Thy spirit to recite what another may think dear, 
Though it may, like the artichoke, grow 
Far underground, or a great battle beneath the 
smoke. 


142 


“Sweet Beatrice, the summer time is yet to be 
When I may gather garlands rare 
Fit for my soul’s delight in thee; 

Not that their dewey petals half as fair, 

Or aught within the realm of human care, 

Could measure what within my spirit dwells. 

Thq purple-tinted clouds sail o’er the sea 
Leaving the blue sky, the wide ranged shells 
Creep to the sandy lipped shore, murmuring their 
farewells. 

“Awake, eternal truth! Awake and catch the 
fading light! 

Lost in the great whirl, the eagle soars 
Above his beetling crag in misty flight. 
Unchecked by time, the giant water pours 
Its unceasing stream; in maddening fury, roars 
At the wild rocks; the strange dreams 
That play their fancy light about our doors 
Take wing with thee, and borrowed seems 
The bright sun’s unchallenged beams. 

“Ye little brooks that feed the tide of spring, 

Swell the full floods and rush in power along, 
Seek the green fields—for a moment ye are kings, 
And many crowd thy banks to hear thy rushing 
song 

Lost in a day, for a moment proud and strong. 
The willow now may shake its tasseled hair. 


143 


Beneath, in dreamy solitude, the waters run, 

Hid from the vain world. Its loads of care 
Disturb thee not, nor know’st thou what they are. 

“What power is this the wandering fancy calls 
Out from the dim world? A vision fair 
That woos us on. We know not all 
Nor half its influence, yet we share 
A vain thought that moves our heart ere we’re 
aware. 

The sun goes down; approaching twilight steals 
The light of day; we stumble and fall 
Into devious paths where woe and weel 
Are strangely mixed, whate’er we feel. 

“Beatrice, for thee, for thee alone, 

Lift up the gray, cold clouds at early dawn, 

And daylight rears its sparkling cone; 

For thee dances the laughing rill; the fawn 
Leaps in the green fields, on the soft lawn 
The children play; the closing day’s 
Last long look at the green hill far away—■ 

All the voices of nature sing, for they say 

One solemn chant of death when thou art away. 

“Beatrice, I think of thee: Bright hope’s unsullied 
beam 

Shines constant on earth’s wintry shore. 

And all is real. The wild dreams 

That troubled us in childhood are no more, 

But all is truth and brighter than before. 

144 


Love hath her promise and all is well, 

Save what vain regret hath yet in store 
Of changeless time: Our destiny yet may tell, 

Of faith unshaken ere rings the marriage bell.” 

We left our hero with boat and oar, 

Restless and disturbed, he knew not why, 
Turning listlessly toward the shore 
Where the bold cliff’s perpedicular side bore 
Huge cedar trees that stretched their shaggy arms, 
As ghosts were wont to do in times of yore 
To frighten maids and matrons, whose alarms 
Marked haunted many wayside farms— 

He heard the wild cry, and turning 
Saw the broken mirrors of the waters lay 
Where the great rock, some ancient flaw 
Exposed, had broken bare and gray 
And hung o’er the water, hiding the light of day. 
One instant’s thought, the despairing sound 
Still echoing rang among the neighboring hills; 
His boat leaped forward one great bound, 

Then stuck upon a broken rock— hung fast 
aground. 

No time was there to free the boat— 

He plunges in and notwithstanding all 
The vigor of his arm and skill to float, 

His boots were clogs that seemed like leaden balls. 


145 


Before him a face appears and utters a last 
despairing call. 

“ Tis someone drowning!” thus he cries: 

Nor boots nor coat seem hindrance now. 

To cover the distance, one wild pull he tries 
And gains the point as the body sinks, no more 
to rise. 

All the vain plunges ere the body’s found 
We will not attempt to relate, nor fill 
Our page with empty phrase. Around 
The corner of a jutting rock, motionless and still, 
Lay gentle Beatrice, gentle as the winds that fill 
The sails of the happy homeward bound. Away 
Vain and unfruitful thought—’tis death’s chill, 
Cold hand, yet serene as when at play 
But an hour ago. Oh, the unhappy day! 

How the body lay entangled in the weeds below, 
Wtih what superhuman strength and skill 
’Twas borne aloft, no one may know. 

He did not think that life had fled. A thrill 
Of ecstacy that he should save a human life filled 
His soul and nerved his failing arms*. 

When at last upon the rough-hewn bank 
He laid his burden down gently, that no harm 
Could it befall, and felt no motion, wild alarm 

Took the place of buoyant hope. And yet he knew 
Not that it was Beatrice. Now, with all 
That he had learned from books, and in lieu 
Of other things, with his remaining strength he 
fills 

The requirements, upon a little hill 

Moss grown for cushions. He moves with care 

The body upon the little mound. 

146 


Soft and velvety, the mild June air 
Stirs the wet ringlets of her drabbled hair. 

Who knows but that the soul with one great bound 
Leaped to kiss the trembling pulse to life, 

While in the strong arms of manhood found 
A succor in that mortal strife 
With death whose bloody knife 
Was turned aside by that strange power 
That all have felt and no one understands — 
Strange mixture of bitter, sweet and sour 
To come within the space of one short hour. 

And when he felt the pulse return 
And breathings oft and motions stir, 

He parted her dripping ringlets, if he might learn 
Who was this maiden child and wherefore did 
his heart so yearn. 

His feelings one may never know 
Save he who has been from icy-fettered shore 
Released by the great sun from his tenement of 
woe 

In the huge white mountain of perpetual snow. 

It has been told, conflicting emotions may 
o’erthrow 

The struggling mind in which they dwell. 

Such was to Allen this unexpected blow 
That he staggered under and fell. 


147 


Whether it was joy supreme, none can tell, 

Or fright that he had been so very near 
Utter desolation where naught that dwells 
Beneath the sun can break the spell. 

On the borderland, the mountain height, 

See the prophet of God regretful stand 
And view the rich fields whose delights 
Are not for him, yet in that land 
Prophetic light shines o’er pageants grand 
That after years shall uncover there; 

But to the land of dreams must go 
No burial car or funeral, and no share 
Save his portion of cool mountain air. 

But to our task—Allen, regaining consciousness, 
Heard them say ’twas a noble act, 

And free and glad they were to confess 
Aside from common duty ’twas, in fact, 

A noble deed. Many there were who lacked 
The courage to attempt, they were all agreed, 
Even to swim across to the stony point 
O’ergrown with rushes and tangled reeds— 

That it was a good Christian act whate’er his 
creed. 

Allen, dreaming in the borderland, 

Half conscious, not knowing where or which way, 
But sailing in a boat, was driven on the strand. 


148 


To buffet with the waves had thought it play, 
Without fear as harbored safe within the bay. 
Sound of voices broke upon his dream. 

Nor yet was reason crowned upon his throne— 
The mingling of voices he had deemed 
Wreckers watching for their prey if his boat 
careened. 

His mind struggling to throw its light 
Upon his half-conscious soul, the bright rays 
Of morning break through the shattered clouds, 
whose flight 

Alternately make the landscape dark and light— 
Sees things uncertain, nor can control 
Or understand the cause or why 
Disjointed visions around him roll, 

Each part and parcel of a different whole. 

Someone hath called the name of Beatrice. 
Springing with one wild bound, he shook 
As with an ague chill, nor would release 
The phantom that within his arms he took; 

For his former dream troubled him. Even his 
look 

Was of shipwreck; and he called, “To the shore! 
To the shore!” 

And tried to break away from them who held him 
there. 


149 


Then in a swoon he lay, nor heard the roar 
Of wind, nor of voices mingling heard he more. 

Beatrice, as some rare bud plucked from off its 
stem 

Withers beneath the heat, the crescent moon 
In its night wandering adds a silver hem 
Or shrinks away till but a laughing horn 
Is left to peep at us and mock the rising morn— 
As wakes the shrunken bud, its withered air 
Forsaken for a proud new bloom, as in the glen 
The windflower blows, yet Beatrice more fair 
Than aught in nature... .Nor do we care 

To make comparisons. (They are odious, so they 
say. 

And can be made in any kind of weather, 

Tumbled off like herrings from a dray, 

All so near alike we can’t tell whether 
Each load’s the same in weight, they vary not a 
feather.) 

Beatrice, her revery thus unduly broken, 

Was carried home without delay,— 

The connecting link still left unspoken— 

Was troubled that she had not left Allen a single 
token. 

He, in fevered delirium', saying wild, 

Nor knows he rests within his father’s dwelling— 


150 


Struggles with a broken oar; nor will he be 
relieved. 

Then he hears the tide come rushing, swelling, 
Toward the land. He starts and calls Beatrice, 
compelling 

The attendants to their utmost strength and skill 
To keep him on his couch till those wild dreams 
subside.... 

Again he lies so peaceful, calm and still 
That soft whispers fall heavily, and the shrill 

Alarm on the old family clock must be removed. 
Thus many days. The season far advanced, 

He walked in melancholy mood across his father's 
field. 

Unnoticed round, the shimmering sunbeams 
danced, 

His thoughts afar among the hills of France. 
Beatrice, with her parents, had crossed the sea. 
London's sights they had been through, 

And charming Paris too they needs must see, 
And now through France were journeying on to 
Italy.... 

To find the wide sea between them rolled 
Had given Allen a touch of blues. 

Such thoughts cannot always be controlled. 

Then to think that misfortune comes by two’s, 

Or by doubles of any number you may choose! 
And Beatrice had written but half a page! 


151 


Not that her feelings had grown cold, 

But forbid, till further age 

Had given discretion in writing, to engage. 

Then there traveled with them, she had said 
before, 

Son of an old friend whom her father knew. 

This troubled Allen, though he knew no more 
Than a Hottentot does of snow. The few 
Happy hourg he had passed communing with his 
muse 

Were gone; his speech was monosyllables and ran 
To silence. Melancholy held him, and he grew 
Passionately fond of nature. His wondrous plan 
He studied far from the haunts of man. 

Then a prattler of the self-same town 
Where Beatrice lived, lowering his speech, had 
said, 

Or began to say, when Allen knocked him down, 
That a certain person... .then he led 
To something else, then again presumed she had 
fled* 

Thus his whispering tongue had filled the air. 

One who was but a silly clown 

Profaning all around, nor did he care 

If he but had a listener to fall within his snare. 

A vain report, skirting the marshy flats 
Where reptiles crawling leave their slimy trails 


152 


On the damp grass, and the wild bats 
Find shelter for their young, and the quail 
Is not found, and all is rank and stale, 

Came with stealthy tread one summer afternoon 
Peeping through the rushes—a quiet “maybe so,” 
“Sometime since, perhaps half a moon, 

Someone was seen,” “somewhere,” “too late,” or 
“too soon;” 

“I will not vouch for either day or hour, 

For old Time is a slippery customer,” they say, 
Leaving things ill-done far beyond our power 
To e’er undo them, and we lay 
The charge without particulars, as we may, 

Of either reason, time or place, 

So that none be wiser if we stray 
A little from our course, and no trace 
Be left in such an ill-defined race. 

Beatrice—when sickness and fear of death had 
called 

To a poor frequented part of town 

Nearby where haunts of vice and crime, the soiled 

Of all that was evil had there shelter found, 

And shame and danger lurked in every corner— 
found 

Returning late, had an escort asked.... 


153 


Had been seen—What more could evil-mongers 
ask? 

Their hearts’ desire found, no serious task 

To start foul gossip. The oft-repeated tale 
enlarges, 

Each ingenious soul e’er adding something new. 
To bring within the bounds of reason such a 
charge 

Takes skill in details, whate’er you do, 

So that all be compassed in a single view, 

And nothing contradictory shall appear 
If memory’s boat is full hitched on a barge; 

For nothing lost, ’tis surely clear 
The stock increases from year to year. 

And this is the root from which such powers 
increase: 

The little seed that grew the Upas tree, 

The serpent’s coil that none can e’er release, 

The little waves that, rushing from the sea, 

Make vain his efforts, whoe’er he be. 

Allen had felt, and keenly felt, the blows 
Of an assassin might be returned, yet peace 
Betimes would fill his soul as one who knows 
Summer comes at winter’s close. 

Yet, in gloomy paths we will not say of doubt, 

A thousand fancies with their hedgehog quills 


154 


Goading on their ever-inconstant thought 
Drop by drop the bitter cup they fill; 

Nor yet knows that death proceeds from little ills. 
Oh, the death of love when the mind proclaims 
The dire thing we dare not even pretend! 

For confidence let vile suspicion reign, 

While enchantment lingers still to sharpen pain. 

As some great painting, infinitely fine, 

Is moved and broken, to the artist’s eye 
Where but a speck is seen or faulty line 
Appears, though unnoticed by the passerby, 

To him the beauty’s spoiled; though vain he try 
To see perfection, his eye will fall 
On the crude, unfinished part. 

His mind is so constructed he cannot call 
That beautiful that lacks it all. 

Old proverbs that, running through the head 
Of him who halts but to catch his breath, 

Oi* doubts the least or credit gives to what is said 
Of all that have been deceived, of cruel death 
Wrought by woman’s wiles—the proverbs saith: 
Ye fools who trust to woman’s word— 

Many other things our hero read. 

Imagination, too, like a wounded bird 
Presents strange flights, none hath seen or heard. 

To mystify his free, ingenious mind, 

All doubtful things in battle-lined arrayed, 


155 


Words and phrases that ill-defined 
Have strange significance to a mind dismayed— 
Though reasons, arguments, the thought inclined, 
The heart in faith abides, for love hath made it 
blind. 

When from the corners of the world hung the 
curtains of the night, 

When the children of the crescent Queen 
Across the heavens strayed, 

And Morpheus shut the eyes of wild delight, 

To revel in Fairyland till morning light.... 

The gray hills, peeping upward, saw the sun 
decayed, 

Fall down the westward steep with anger red; 
Black night creep up their eastern shade, 

And from their summit quick the daylight sped, 
And twilight fades away. The day is gone, and 
light, the life, is dead. 

And so almost are hope and faith, the heavy guns 
Which, battling on their broken falls now laid 
In ruins, quit, the struggle seems so nearly done— 
They are dismayed that they e’er the fight begun. 

Oh, night, thou rushest to crowd the fleeing day! 
Thou black, bespangled sphere, thou ridest on 
Where unexplored wastes in grandeur lay, 

Where huge volcanic craters yawn, 

And all the earth afraid of the scenes with the 
daylight gone; 


156 


The noisy world in silence—all seems very death. 

Revenge doth haunt thy gloomy shadows for his 
prey. 

Thou art hollow—a black nothing, as one who 
saith 

A vain negation without life or breath. 

Yet, we fear thee, and with feelings strange we 
pray 

That thou wilt hasten on; another day awake, 

That all who sleep may see tomorrow’s sun rise 
bright and gay. 

Yet we know that thou wilt go, that naught can 
make 

Thee linger when the dappled gold along the orient 
breaks. 

Allen’s distempered mind had loved the night. 

It closed around him and softly lay 

Its folds of peace about him, yet the light 

Disturbed and troubled him with hope’s delirious 
sight. 

Yet, bound by duty’s paths, his mind was free 

To roam the world in deep unrest. 

True philosophy he had not, as you may see 

By the moods of mind herein confessed; 

And reason had not the power to make his spirit 
blessed. 


157 


His knowledge of the world was but a draft 
A book-worm’s goblet offered—a sipping bee 
That lights upon a flower while experience laughs 
At such crude thoughts—the wheat so mixed 
among the chaff. 

Pondering much, his mind had learned 
That he could not measure all within himself— 
Something yet beyond, still inward turned; 

And pondering still from memory’s shelf 
Was taken what might aid to fix the airy elf 
Of conscious being, and translate the vain conceit 
That puzzled him, the fire that burned 
Imagination, strange and varied feats, 

That seeming, things that prove deceptions cheats. 

He saw himself confined within narrow bounds, 
The hours that others gave to mirth and joy 
For him had little pleasure, the usual round, 

The merry dance, had scarce detained him when 
a boy— 

If mentioned now, served only to annoy; 

Yet, he was courteous, grave, serene, 

As one who, past a stormy sea, lies still aground, 
Looking back to what has been— 

Mad waves are gone and silence rests upon the 
scene. 

Let fate, or mind diseased, or destiny, yet maybe 
The unseen powers from which all passions grow 
Music’s final chord, the unheard symphony 
Which binds the earth and all things here below, 
158 


To end at last in heat or snow; 

But as the prophet’s word would seem to say, 

All’s made anew; but here the doctors disagree. 

Then how should Allen understand the lights that 
play 

About him when the learned mistake the sun of 
day? 

He moved among the old familiar scenes, 

The scenes, which unlike him, were still the same. 

A transient flame at times spread o’er his features, 
as on a screen 

The prism’s light is thrown, then quickly faded 
as it came. 

His heaviness had been a cause of censure and 
blame 

From those who saw a change nor knew the 
cause— 

Thought him selfish, moody, that idle dreams 

Were more esteemed than friendship’s genial 
laws, 

Thus opening the way to more serious flaws. 

You dreamers are an unthrifty lot at best— 

See the prophet fed by ravens in the wood— 

Strong visions in his bosom made their nest. 

Earth’s sweetest singers, too, have wanted food. 


159 


Their nerves a brand that seared and burned their 
blood, 

They played with fancy till it became 
A part and parcel of their being. No rest 
Was known; imagination’s uncouth beings, blind 
and lame, 

Were their companions—thus, alas, the road to 
fame. 

Memory brought him many pleasant gifts 
From days that were no more; nor could they be 
Renewed, for all things change: the dark cloud 
lifts 

And sails away and storms again burst o’er the 
sea— 

Calm or fury rules by fate’s decree. 

Yet there is a middle line where the mind consents 
To what can never be mended, rests in peace, or 
idly drifts 

With the current, or takes what accident permits, 
Whether ill or worse befall, still is content. 

Allen saw all the wondrous days that now were 
gone 

Touched with gold, the odorous June 
Came dancing past him. A soft-eyed fawn 
Rose up in the field and ran; the heat of noon 
Dropped like a shower—’twas in the waning 
moon, 


160 


And Allen ran on and on, till Phoebus in the west, 
Low down, grew red, and Beatrice waiting on a 
lawn 

Green and velvety, with stars looking down, at 
whose behest 

Allen ran—with heat and failing strength 
Was sore oppressed. 

Stopped and returned with sober countenance and 
sad, 

High hopes cast down, for had he not deemed 
It a sure prize ? Ever the sanguine lad 
Ran, and ever the fawn just before, screened 
At times by the hazel copse, lost and gone it 
seemed; 

Then on and on through cleared smooth space 
Till the high hopes of high reward he had 
Of a present for Beatrice faded away, the chase 
Gone on, sick at heart, for not a trace 

Of the red sun could be seen, moving always 
toward the west. 

Beatrice, though she had thought 
That Allen would bring the fawn, was not 
distressed 

Seeing him return empty handed, for she was 
taught 

By Allen's heated face and deeper disappointment, 
who sought 


161 


To comfort her, what he might do another day, 
When he grew to be a man.... ’twas the best 
He could do; and Beatrice, well pleased af his 
devotion, lay 

Her hand in his, and singing through the fields, 
they went their way. 

Such thoughts rather annoyed than pleased him. 
He saw that they were gone and feared forever. 
What to another might have been a mood or whim, 
To Allen was reality. He could not sever 
His thought of the past, and was ever 
Linking the old with the new. He could not bring 
Harmony out of discordant notes. His mind 
would swim 

In recollecting what had been; yet still would cling 
To faith in Beatrice, with hope’s perennial spring. 

He felt as if rooted to the soil while he would be 
Endowed with wing that he might fly 
Far away, with rapid wing, to where in Italy 
A maid wandered among the old ruins that lie 
In great heaps of moldering stones and columns 
high— 

Remnants of that iron power that trod down the 
world; 

Great arches and pillars that seem to be 
By some great mechanic power or Titan hurled 
Where they lie broken, carved, and curled. 


162 


The thousand wonders that scattered lie 
About the seven hills, where Brutus spoke, 

The sluggish Tiber, the beggars’ continuous cry, 
And accumulated dust of years conspire to make 
Us wish that all had been buried when Etna 
quaked, 

That all might be exhumed by curious anti¬ 
quarians, 

Little touched by time—see uncovered Pompeii 
Living a thousand years unchanged, like our 
boasted vegetarians 

Who deny us meat, fish and foul—anti- 
Trinitarians, 

Who believed that Adam lived on gluten and 
starch, 

Succulent plants, herbs and trees that outlive 
The centuries; and when Jehovah bade him march 
Out of the garden of Eden, that he should give 
Them skins for coats seems strange, the argument 
a sieve 

That will not hold the conclusion, and yet 
The ground was cursed and man should parch 
In the sun, in battle, with tares and sweat, 

And being hungry, perforce sat down and ate. 

Thus they claimed Adam’s degenerate race 
Shortened their lives from a thousand years to 
thirty. 

When gardening failed, they took up the chase, 
Roamed the world, naked, bronzed and dirty, 

163 


Believing meat easier to get than potatoes, 

And would not hurt ye. 

Thus they think that man lost his high esteem, 
Among the long-lived animals a place— 

Thus life or living, the waking dream 
Called life, was shortened to a single beam. 

Eating meat and cracking bones full changed his 
vegetable tooth. 

His teeth grew strangely pointed and canine. 
What other great changes in time, forsooth. 

Will appear, let prophets tell while we repine 
On roast beef, ham, and venison, in fine, 

Indulge our boasted taste for blood, 
ruth, 

Cutting, slashing and killing without the slightest 
All the long catalogue of animal food, 

Smacking our sedentary lips and crying good— 

These little things of the outward world, 

Things that move us but for a moment and pass 
away. 

The grandeur of Italian landscape lay unfurled 
Up and around through many a rocky way. 

In rough-hewn caves, far from the light of day, 
Fled the Christians from the persecutor’s rage: 
Many from nature’s battlements were caught and 
hurled— 


164 


Thousands upon thousands could not assuage 
The demon thirst for blood, nor youth nor age. 

O ye, where everlasting silence reigns, ye crags 
and peaks, 

Above man’s infinite jest of tyranny and power 
What wondrous tales could ye unfold, could ye 
but speak, 

Since first the adventurous bark touched, un¬ 
happy hour. 

Upon your smiling shore? Strife and blood, 
shower upon shower, 

What but the death grapple hath been heard: the 
groan 

Of helpless victim to the slaughter led; the shriek 
Of the overthrown; the victors’ mad dance 
where mercy is unknown; 

The dungeon’s damp walls, and the dying, ex¬ 
piring moan? 

O ye sweet vales, what happy days, 

The rustic swain, the highland mountaineer, 

Had not ambition trod your beauteous ways, 
Where red blood flowed, and you might see 
The cry of famine renewed from year to year! 
Yet, Italy, thou art lovely to behold; 

The rough spirit of war is now subdued; 

Thou sleepest in peace, unconscious of the gray 
Dawn of hope; the ever arching sky of blue, 
Through this the advancing heavens their way 
pursue. 


165 


There the wily Carthagenian came slipping down 
the eastern slope, 

Ye snowy Alps, with that dread oath his mood 
and genius took, 

Ye walls of Italy, with such a spirit you could not 
cope, 

The fierce spirit of war, whose exalted mien and 
fierce look 

Proud Rome’s imperial standards shook— 

Nay, battling broke at Canae’s flood, 

Sank the chivalry of Rome, a gleam of hope, 

To the banded nations here withstood, 

And covered the green fields with Roman blood. 

Beatrice, are you not happy in this enchanted land 
Where all that meets the eye, the hills and dales, 
Speak to the sense of beauty, where e’er thou 
stand ? 

The earth is consecrated by heroes slain. A veil 
Is cast by time. The earth appears but common 
dust. 

Man’s pale dominion ceases—earth drunk his 
blood.... 

Alike the conquered and the victorious hand 
Fall and leave no trace; the spring floods 
Wash the earth. Come forth anew, green grass 
and opening bud. 


166 


Vain though to cheat the raptured soul 
Of all that man has dared, the wondrous name, 

Of all arts, mysterious magic, undeciphered scroll; 
The sight of genius’ burning flame 
Paints life with immortal colors—without fault 
or blame, 

Ye cannot feed the heart’s unrest. 

Ye gay and gaudy trimmings of a heart unblest, 
Unloved, alone, and uncaressed. 

Beatrice, doomed by cold parental power — 
Heartless, still how kind was their intent: 

When experience in the world hath made us sour 
Warped, and shrivelled, the generous heart has 
bent— 

To cruel deeds at last gives free consent. 

Deeming ourselves more wise as more discreet, 
Shaking responsibilities from us like a shower, 
Measuring the spirit by inches, rods, or feet, 
Committing ourselves till pride forbids retreat.... 

Thus Beatrice saw, and saw all unmoved, 
Museums, paintings, marble-sculptured forms; 
The great mountains, too, where time hath groved 
Deep in his base, while above the storm 
Roars in tempestuous fury, and the mild warm 
Days of summer are not known; the frost 
Of unnumbered ages, heap upon heap, roofs 


167 


The bald peaks where earth’s air and sea are 
lost— 

Unmeasured and indistinguishable whiteness into 
the heavens tossed. 

One might suppose, from all the relics here, 
the lords were dead: 

Not even a sample left to dazzle or dismay, 

Strange mistakes where e’er the dust of 
ancient kings ye tread— 

There counts, dukes, and earls, crowd the 
public way; 

Smile and bow and simper at beauty, as they 
may. 

And Beatrice had to pass the gauntlet fire 

Of rude though noble eyes, compelled to thread 

The countless aisles where Caesar’s form and 
Cato’s ire 

Speak more truly than they respire. 

Then she saw the yellow Tiber flowing, the 
decay of Rome 

Change all, palaces and walls crumble and fall, 

Disturbing a moment the rushing flood; the 
noise and foam 

Sweep on, the dead of untold ages called 

From out the dark depths—The Frank, the 
Gaul 


168 


Cry still for vengeance, slain to make a Roman 
holiday . . . 

Why weeps the barbarian, wild and lone ? 

Why curses she the light of Roman day? 

Why groans the world in battle's fierce array? 

Melt, ye northern snows! Turn loose the 
flood! 

Lick, ye ferocious wolves, lick the gore. 

In Rome! fair capital that hath stood 

For all that is hateful. The sword she bore 

Mercilessly hath slain—shall slay no more. 

The Centurians, the generals of high com¬ 
mand, 

The invincible legions, fell welling in their 
blood . . . 

All are gone; the names fade from off the 
land— 

Here the great forum was, the very place on 
which we stand. 

Here Cato spoke, the patriot Gracchi bled, 

Walked the silver-tongued Cicero with adu¬ 
lation vain; 

Here the profligate Clodius his ruffians led, 

With daggers hid beneath their cloaks; the 
train 

That followed the great Caesar, too was here. 


169 


We complain 

That retribution marches slow, but now be¬ 
hold 

Great Babylon where life’s unraveled thread 
Snapped in the hand of patriot men— 

Caesar lies cold at the feet of Pompey’s statue 
—the story’s told. 

Beatrice, weary of travel, begged they might 
return. 

Some foreboding of evil seemed to stretch its 
sable wings 

Over all the future. Could we but learn 
To read the admonitions such feelings bring, 
Decipher the hidden laws, the secret springs 
Of man’s strange mood, the melancholy power 
Of prophecy that twinkles through the future 
night and burns 

Most brightly as we near the fatal hour, 
When man’s frail tenement withers like an 
April flower! 

Beatrice saw the mad sea dashing on the shore, 
Heard its moan and roar, and was afraid; 

Saw a vision of strange faces sculling with 
phantom oar, 

Heard cries that ever with her waking mo¬ 
ments stayed, 

Like a warning hand upon her spirit laid, 


170 


That she might not wander forth on rocky 
heights 

Nor ’tempt their surface, as she had done be¬ 
fore. 

She told the vision. Some thought it strange, 
others fright, 

None seriously, save those who saw her eyes’ 
strange light. 

She begged they might go by land, 

Feeling uncertain what such things portend. 

Hard to be guided by things we do not under¬ 
stand, 

Withdrawing from points that we cannot de¬ 
fend, 

Feeling doubtful how it all might end. 

Where the broad Mediterranean washes the 
shells 

Against the coast of France, and the tide 
heaves and swells, 

They took a boat and bade the land farewell. 

Allen grew more restless as the days advanced 

Left his father’s house and wandered by the 
shore; 

Saw the restless waves, stood entranced 

On the shore; heard the unceasing eternity 

Moan and rush and roar, till things that be 


171 


Are swallowed in vast, unmeasured space; 
And all the moving things are shells cast up by 
chance, 

Huddled together, jostling each other in the 
race, 

Rushing and crowding from place to place. 

He sat upon a moss-grown stone of human 
shape— 

A face worn by the tide—and heard the waves 
Singing their song; the dark rocks, like a 
border of crape. 

Hung their jutted foreheads beneath the 
graves 

Of the unknown, wrecked on a foreign coast 
when none could save. 

And the song of the sea was of death and loss, 
And it floated on and on, by the gulf and cape, 
Till all had heard, the Crescent, the Cross, 

Had wept, for the song would not cease. The 
tall pines toss 

Their proud tops on Norway’s coast : 

Their song was heard, and far inland 
The weather-beaten sailor oft would boast, 
Baring his brown and blistered hands, 

How upon such a night as this upon the strand 
Of Affon’s beach he had been cast away; 

In the Fiji Islands, too, had served as a roast 


172 


Had not a comrade succored him. He did not 
say 

Farewell, but leaped into the boat and paddled 
off without delay. 

The song of the sea as it catches and hurls 
Its mountain of waters on a circle of worlds, 
The song of the sea, how it draws the last drop 
Of hope from the mother whose son’s on the 
top 

Of a weather-worn ship as it battles alone 
In a trough of the sea, unsignaled, unknown! 
The report is she’s lost. A line may be read 
Of a ship gone down off Marblehead, 

Gone with captain and crew, 

Meaning sad news, alas, to the few 
Whose husband, father or son is among 
The brave. Battled with tempests, whose knell 
hath been rung, 

They shrink from the world, its confident tone 
Is discord to them, and they march on alone. 
Desolate, utterly desolate, the song of the 
waves 

Are cries of the drowned calling out from 
their graves. 


173 


Imagination, too, leaps into a world unknown, 
A world where consciousness is lost, 

And vain fancies seem realities. The noise 
and moans 

Are weird ghosts that on thy waves may 
dance and toss 

Their white foamy heads, as if the frost 
Of unnamed winters hung about them, and 
their wail 

Was human voices. The cry for help, the 
groan 

Of the dying, as the spirit leaves its frail 
Abode, and the rescued as they shout, “A 
sail!” . . . 

More real still, a ship appears, 

Dismantled, riding the engulfing waters, 

Rude forms of sailors as she rears 
And plunges . . . now the rough rock has 
caught her, 

Grinds her oaken timbers. (Many a fair 
daughter 

Shall find her dreams of shipwreck come true.) 
The ship has parted . . . the sight appalls— 
and so near 

The shore. All seem lost. One face is still in 
view— 

So like the face of one he knew. 


174 


A piercing scream floats on the wind, 

The same that caught his ear one day on a 
little lake 

A year before. He rose to find 

The great broad sea around him roll and break 

And tumble and boil, and shake 

The very rock on which he’d sat— 

The tempest hissed and howled, but he did not 
mind, 

The vision was before him, and there at 
He gazed and wondered. The flat 

Stretch of shifting sands was now a furious 
wave 

Of roaring, rushing shallows, 

Covering the highway that none could pass. 
The rushing sea again grew calm. What fol¬ 
lows 

Is but the daily round, the hollow form, 

For love, the life, had fled: 

Valiant men and ships their anchors cast— 
The weary, anxious toil for bread 
Till the great wide ocean give up her dead. 
(Later:) 

Beatrice was not on this ship that was lost. 
Allen was so shocked by the news of her sup¬ 
posed death that he determined to throw his 
life away in the war with the Moors. The 
glad news was brought him at the recruiting 
office. 


175 


GERALDINE 


Who called me? Was I dreaming? 
Answer, little Geraldine. 

Hush such wild unheard of laughter, 
In thy gown of velvetine. 

Listen now, and hear the echoes, 
Hear them softly die away. 

Laughter kisses all the mountains— 
Be careful, maiden, what you say. 

What are echoes of the woodland, 

To the echoes of the soul, 

Bubbling up from life’s deep fountain, 
Leaping out beyond control ? 

What is life but empty echoes 
Of the lives that were before? 

Just the same a little moment, 

And are gone forevermore. 

Simple childhood is an echo 
Of the infant passed away. 

And manhood, too, is but the longing, 
When childhood has no more to say. 


176 


Thus we pass from hill to mountain— 
Leaf by leaf, and page by page, 

Life’s book opens from the fountain, 
Whither turn we in old age. 

So it is, my little playmate. 

Answer, Geraldine, so true, 

If the skies grow dark with anguish, 
Will thy eyes be still as blue? 

Yet, in fancy still another 
Distant years shall biing to view— 
Another Geraldine as happy, 

Maybe happier than you. 


177 


AGE 


This is age ! I passed four-score 
A long way back, ten years or more. 

I’m dreaming now of sailing ships, 

Of chilling climes where thick ice drifts. 

I past the coast of Labrador, 

I see its ice-bound rocky shore. 

I hear the ice-bergs’ cannon jars, 

See them rear their icy spars. 

The tide is still beneath the flow, 

And not a track across the snow. 

The deeper caves within the hills 
Frost has spangled with his quills. 

All o’er the walls a million spine 
Through and through each other shine. 

I cannot see a single trace 
That summer ever had a place. 

I hear a sound that ever rings : 

This land is death, and frost is king. 


178 


TO MISS C. 


Oh ye gods, who doth inspire the hearts of 
men. 

Anoint with fire the poet’s pen, 

For he has no common task before him; 

To please the eye of beauty fine, 

He must not trip in any line, 

Lest with critic’s eye she scorn him. 

He must canter through his verses 
Like a jockey for his purses, 

Leaving wags and dust behind him; 

He hears the word and off he springs, 

Trying his Pegassus wings, 

Running down as you unwind him. 

Oh Phantasy, what a view, 

To see the cold heart shining through, 

And ne’er be wiser for the spending 
Of finer things than earth e’er knew! 

To watch the clouds that skim the blue, 

And ne’er suspect what heaven is sending! 

Beauty, to pay my homage, I must bow, 

But plague inspected ignorance, how? 

Some graceful compliment would do it, 

To paint my cheeks in deep vermilion, 

And go on the war-path lie an Indian; 

I fear to attempt least I should rue it. 


179 


If ladies’ smiles are still as dear 
As things of that sort were last year, 

I find myself in desperation. 

I might as well heave this at you, 

And try my powers upon a statue, 
Some marble, clay, or bronze creation. 


180 


MY FATHER 


Who is it that I have seen 
Wearing his age so hale and green? 
Whether heat or winter snows, 

Alike through all, in strength, he goes— 
My father. 

Who bore the burden of the day, 

In other lands now far away? 

Who is no older, not a day, 

Though he has children turning gray? 
My father. 

In hope and strength, the bliss of all, 
Who never fails us when we call, 
Happy as a child of May, 

Though it be winter, cold and gray— 
My father. 

Who looks with faith and hope on high, 
And never doubts a cloudy sky ? 

Who tells a story half so well, 

Or in rich anecdotes will dwell? 

My father. 


181 


CHRISTMAS 


The air is frosty, crisp and cold. 

His eyes look out beneath a load of care, 

And see bright children clad in raiment rare, 
While his are ragged, worn and old. 

The bells keep time to twinkling stars, 

And hope sweeps backward through the rift 
of years 

To that fair time which no one knows, save he 
who hears 

The clash of arms, knows battle scars. 

A fairy goddess handing down 
Sweets to the lips of innocent fair; 

While through his ragged garments are 
Sifted the snows that whistle through the 
town. 

He hears the great organ, peal on peal, 

Bring out the joy of Christmas eve— 

Outside he stands and will not leave, 

Though biting frosts into his bosom steal. 

He thinks of home, that olden time, 

A youth with people richly clad, 

With all the joys that childhood ever had— 

To that sweet time, when ’neath the budding 
vine, 


182 


Love’s fair eyes looked deep into his own. 
Where now his lofty schemes? 

All to dust his brightest dreams, 

But as chaff the wind has blown. 

In his home, where love is still, 

Are bare and naked walls. 

And he hears his bright-eyed children call, 
And he cannot answer, do as he will. 

A year ago, old Santa Claus 
Had brought a doll, and candy brighter still, 
And now their stockings, empty, hang on the 
wall— 

The bank has failed, for men defy the laws. 


183 


BUILDING CASTLES 


My lady sits above the clouds 
Upon a throne of gold, 
Weaving a charm 
For my spirit’s harm, 

As fairies did of old. 

But now I build a castle, 

Very tall and grand, 

Just like the tower 
Built by the power 
Of ancient Babel land. 

Four men stand upon the walls 
And catch the falling stars; 
And every night, 

In a stream of light, 

Shoot up the Northern bars. 

Now I stand, and in my hand 
The keys, and all is done: 

The gates of brass 
Which cover the pass 
Are burnished like the sun. 


184 


And now I shall go to my queen, 

And bid her hasten down; 

And many the feet 
Shall run there to meet— 

And Ill show her a golden crown. 

But when her hand had touched the gate, 
And I had opened wide the door, 

What I feared 
All disappeared, 

And I shall see it no more. 


185 


A FRAGMENT 


Long is the way and dark, 

The bridled tongue dances not 

To the music of the brain. Fairy footprints 

Move like shadows o’er the land ; 

And retrospection shakes discretion’s locks 
At the panting haste of youth. The flocks 
Which, harrow-shaped, draw through the vast 
expanse 

Mirrored in the eternal depths, 

Chase the bright sun from north to south; 
The billowing earth, the crater’s mouth, 
Foretell no rest within the universe of God. 

O, could I stand beneath the falling spray, 
Where some tremendous cataract casts its 
bow of peace, 

And feel the mighty trembling of its power! 
Baptize my soul this passing hour; 

Tonight move me to forget; release 
My tangled feet from out the net 
Of false faith. The unwished for shower 
Of ills departs from out my heart. 


186 


THE LOVERS 


There’s nothing in this world so sweet 
As when the glance of lovers meet, 

Unless it is the close caress, 

Or words when they each other bless. 

In youth each thing is what it seems— 

O, give me back my boyish dreams! 

Those roguish eyes, how well I loved them— 
Now many years with sod above them. 

Tis idle now, vain to regret— 

Things are lovely round us yet. 

A VALENTINE 

Fair maid, if random thought should lodgment 
find 

Somewhere within thy frigid bosom, 

Still I should be half inclined 

To save my words through fear I’d lose them. 

The sphinx, in grandeur, reigns of old, 
Unchanged alike in tone or feature, 

But, for a Venus, rather cold 
For such a heavenly molded creature. 


187 


EXAMPLE 


If rivers from their mountain height 
Flow downward to the sea, 

What precedent is that 
For you and me? 

If stars shine brightly through the night, 

And hide themselves by day, 

What argument is there in that 
To guide our way? 

Bright flowers will bloom when winds are free, 
Then slowly disappear— 

What comfort can be drawn from that 
To give us cheer? 


188 


DECORATION DAY 


Ye who stood for liberty, 

Though fallen, standing still; 

Ye are crowding by the silver sea— 

Rank upon rank, bristles the bayonet still. 

Blow, bugle, blow; sound a revelie 
For those who are, yet are not— 

Like the waves of the sea, 

They are not dead, the true. 

They are living in the hearts they enchain. 
Wherever we go may the blue 
Uniform of our soldiers remain, 

Blow, bugles, blow; sound the revelie. 

You cannot honor them now, 

They are laid in golden urns of renown. 
Repeat again thy oft-broken vow, 

By friends with the great and lay 
Thy vanity down— 

Blow, bugles, blow; sound a revelie. 


189 


THANKSGIVING 


Twas in the bleak November, 

About the turkey-time of year, 
That I heard a little gobble, 

And I knew there would be trouble 
In the hen-house very near— 

And the terror made me tremble. 

For one year ago this season 
I had taken quite a potion, 

Taken for my dinner 
More than any sinner, 

I have a smiling notion, 

Ought to take with reason. 

On this same culinary hero 
I had many times before 
Cut and carved at pleasure, 

And had eaten without measure 
All the table bore, 

Like a lordly Nero. 

But whether sleeping or awake, 

His judgeship sure appeared. 
Dressed in a flowing gown, 

He strutted through the town 
With his veritable turkey beard, 
And at me his head did shake. 


190 


At length he made a speech, 

With arguments to all, 

And then he cried aloud: 

“Jim Jones is in the crowd. 

Come forward when I call, 

And we will hang you in the hall, 

High above our reach. 

« 

“A human-eating islander, 

Or a red-knee-buckled Highlander, 

Would not eat his neighbor 
To save himself the labor 
Of dressing a four-legged bystander.” 

But when my neck was in the noose 
They gave me leave to choose 
Whether I would be banished to Shanghai, 
Or accept my fate and hang high, 

Or give up my annual booze— 

They hanged me, ran the news. 


191 


EXTRAVAGANZA 


What is it the winds to me have told? 
That all is barren from its birth, 

That there is not but dust in earth 
For a face is stern and cold, 

As in a marble mould. 

What to me are roses rare, 

But to speak a word 
So fine no ear has heard? 

If it have no heed, 

Then it is but a weed. 

What is beauty? Is it a name, 

Something of clay 
That passes in a day, 

An echo from far away? 

I hear it say, 

It is the voice of Truth, 

Clad in eternal youth. 

If she were an idol of earth, 

Simply of earth, 

Then why should I grieve and despair? 
If it were only a face that were fair, 
Then how could true love have its birth, 
If it were only of earth? 


192 


This something, this sweetest delight, 

If it will not abide, 

Why should any dare chide 

If I cry out aloud as it taketh its flight 

Some starless night, 

Goes into the gloom of the night? 

Were she born of the earth and of its gold, 
With a radiance so rare and so sweet, 

Yet with the air of a statue, discreet. 
Disdainfully haughty and cold, 

Or, like a rose, could be purchased and sold, 

Then like the petals that drop on the floor— 
When the heart has forgotten its treasure, 
And the music is slow in its measure— 

And its fragrance is heeded no more, 

The rose is crushed on the floor, 

Now on the floor. 


193 


THE BIRD 


If I had a bird that flew as high 
As doth a hawk in summer sky, 

Yet could not sing, 

I should clip its wing, 

And pass it by— 

Though its plumage were spangled and bright 
As the heavens are on a starry night, 

And yet no song 
Did to it belong, 

I should not let it alight. 

Though rainbow colors its neck might ring 
And diamond hues adorn its wing, 

If from its throat 
Came forth no note 
I should let it swing. 

So, maiden, if you know it well, 

Beauty’s strange and mystic spell, 

Unless with love 
Given from above, 

Is deepest Hell. 


194 


THE REVELER 


Wisdom spoke to me; I heeded not, 

For homespun garments neat and clean 
Spoke of country life, and ere my lot 
I cast where bacchanalian shouts we hear 
And all the passions ring and cheer, 

Where sober life is all forgot, 

I roused the slumbering common place 
At midnight revels wild and weird, 

And wit and wine flushed in my face— 

I plucked the sluggard by the beard, 

Where folly’s votaries laughed and leered— 
Forgot my honor in the chase. 

My boon companions all have fled .... 
They loved the witty gentlemen, 

Nor recked of road nor where it led: 

They hate the drunkard’s noisy den, 

Where filth flows out as from a pen, 

As babbles from a babbler’s head. 

John Jones, the tipler, here I see, 

And Bill who whipped his wife, 

And Taylor who’s son ran off to sea, 

Another from jail, who in his strife 
Had killed his neighbor with a knife— 

And a beggar and the constable and me. 


195 


I was not born to be the mate 
Of such as here around I see, 

To hear a drunkard whine and prate, 

To share a beggar’s sympathy; 

The constable fattening on my fee— 

I shall turn my steps though it be late. 

I fled to the country wild and wide; 

The cowslip blossoms at my knee, 

And wisdom comes to be my bride, 

A sweet and joyous company; 

And I at last again am free, 

Though bound by fetters strong and tried. 


196 


THE EAGLE 


See yon eagle, whose aerie sits 

Beneath him; the frightened sea bird flits; 

He sees the rushing waves roll in— 

There’s not another in the world like him. 

We do well to call him king, 

Whose counselors are his two strong wings; 
Nothing on earth or in heaven he fears; 

And he is a tyrant a hundred years. 

Challenge him upon yon rock, 

He will brave the fiercest hurricane shock; 
With his watchful eye he pierces the blue, 

And deep into the fathomless waters, too. 

He has no song; he sits alone, 

Carved in relief on his battlement stone; 

Or in sullen grandeur he walks the brim 
Or sails far out on the ocean’s rim. 


197 


ETHEL LYNN 


Sweet Ethel Lynn—who can know 
Tf any ere were half so fair? 

With eyes so bright—they sparkle so— 
There’s not her equal anywhere. 

I have half a notion next we meet 
To whisper something in her ear; 

But caution bids me be discreet, 

And then my heart is filled with fear. 

She smiles so sweetly when I call, 
With kindest words she bids me stay; 
But will not linger in the hall, 
Therefore, I fear and go astray. 

Sometimes I think she’s half deceit, 

And artless are her deepest wiles; 

But if I knew she were a cheat, 

I think I’d worship when she smiles. 


198 


HETTIE EVELARD 


’Tis here that fairies dance and sing, 
Pendulous among the leaves; 

Here Orpheus might have tuned his harp, 
Where Hope her fancies spins. 

Here fancies are so clear and bright 
Among these leafy vines,— 

Sunshine straggling in with light, 

A real pantomime. 

Here hope and faith grow strong and bright, 
Among these gray old trees, 

And here the wind will roar at night, 

Across the tops of these. 

This God’s temple—I am here alone, 

And here I worship Him who giveth the rav¬ 
ens food; 

My heart with indignation burns with un¬ 
known 

Strength and resolution fixed and full of 
power. 

Nor take I one more step. The gilded shore 
To me hath mockery in it, and a curse 
Rests on the jeweled crown of monarchy, and 
the wealth 

Ripped from the ribbed ridges of the earth, 




199 


To beauteous womanhood how oft doth prove 
A rough and rugged path filled with thorns. 
Life with me is new; I will no more 
To flattery be a dupe; no jeweled courtier 

Shall in my ears his foolish nothings pour— 

To be all to me and harder than a stone, 
When the orphans cry and the mother in her 
widowhood 

Asks no gift nor anything but time. 

And my love could he refuse. 

In my home where I was born we loved 
Each other and the poor, and the gifts of 
charity— 

No beggar’s curse rests on my father’s home. 

Nor ask the Lord alone to bless but the weak, 
And empty hands with bounteous plenty fill— 
He thought to grace his table with a child, 
Like nature free and glad, like some fair orna¬ 
ment ; 

To brush the dust and city smoke from off his 
heart, 

Nor thought that God’s own hand upheld the 
weak, 

And hath opened the minor eye of truth, 

To see mercy, truth and the dearest thought. 


200 


Still known to him, laid away as some small 
thing, 

A partner, then the burden of a maiden’s 
prayers, 

Nor stand within the breach to supplicate with 
sin, 

This spring and summer beauty that has 
touched 

A face that some call fair, 

’Twould wither at the touch of hands unclean. 

Who talks of love that hath not mercy? 

Hath not seen—neither hath he heard her 
voice. 

I will flee this city and this land. 

Even now I hear, ’tis my father’s voice, 

Which calls beware the tongues of men— 

Where flowers bloom once, no more, 

Nor return of springs, shall ere again their 
petals break; 

Nor opening but to beauty bloom again. 

Ye lords of earth who walk the marble paths, 

With gloved hands and hearts as hard as 
gnarled oak, 

See above, as with a mantle spread, 

The rejected vapors of the cloud. 


201 


Athwart the spires as dark as Ebelis, 

That hides the glorious face of day, 

That from the sunny ’bodes of innocence 
No struggling spark of light, no voice 

Of truth be lost, or caught and dazzled, 

Or fall within the snare of jingling gold. 

My heart be still; the city smoke 

Has cleared away, and lines of light appear, 

And a child singing a childish song: 

“I love the lonely cuckoo’s call; 

I am at home on the roaming sea; 

And the dashing sound of the waterfall 

Is the sweetest of all to me. 

I love the lightsome song of birds, 

For they truly sing of glee; 

But the song of love wherever heard, 

Is the only song for me.” 

This song, my child, is better for age 
Of grave reflection, who knows the source 
And awful power of that strange spell 

Where moon’s pale light is silvered o’er, 

And sunshine, never common, is but light and 
golden. 

Sunbeams weave about a halo bright, 

And rhymes in mad array go trooping through 


202 


The brain. Thou canst not understand, 

I know full well that thou shalt sleep 
And, dreaming, wake with deeper feeling. 

Nor this will not please, nor the birds 
Be welcome; but thou shalt live within thy¬ 
self a newer life. 

The cushioned ease of luxury I despise. 

Is it well to barter youth and truth, 

To cover age with vain security? 

What thought had Moses in the halls 
Of Pharaoh? To be king 
And monarch crowned of half the world 
In balance ’gainst the truth could never weigh. 

After the solid truth of one 
Strong man who offers them 
The slightest thing, a velvet robe, 

Some small advantage in the turn of age. 

What differs it the purse of half a crown? 

The one is lighter and has room 
For many other friendly coin— 

My dream of the past is gone. 

Of one they said a millionaire, 

Yet, if I have not been taught amiss 
I see a beggar with torn garments and alone, 
Half naked, starved, and offering gold 


203 


To those who need no comfort in the world, 
Himself deceived and self-deceiving still, 

In cramped and crawling letters draws 
Across the bonds each year the earnings 

Of the poor, nor will he bate one farthing, 
Though the father, overtaken with some ill 
fate, 

With palsied tongue and tottering gait, 

Pleads but a year till his son, a noble youth, 

Grown stronger with his age, shall lift 
The load from off his father’s back, 

And save the little ones and her 
Grown feeble now, whose voice so often 

In former years had been the pleasure of his 
life; 

Older now and with broken health 
And many cares, whom he had pledged 
In that dear time so long ago, 

With manly heart and hopes as bright 
And joyous as the sun at morning dawn, 

Now withered and nipped by this untimely 
frost— 

And being led by Satan’s messenger on earth, 


204 


In one weak moment pledged his home 
That she, his love, might for a time 
Seek a milder and a better air— 

No more is told of this sad tale. 

The last resort favoring improvement will 
not avail, 

Not though the storm should cry, 

Nor the affectionate arms of the tree 
Planted by the father’s hand 

While his little son stood prattling by, 
Should shake his giant arms 
In rebellion to their new-made lord. 

“Go! You spend your time in idleness; 

“If you cannot pay, begone and give 
Me leave to till my own.” And to himself he 
says, 

“A bad vagrant crowd of grumblers. 

I rue the day that they had aught of mine. 

“Yet it is a goodly farm and worth 
A thousand more. Also it is true 
My coffers are full; I could perhaps give time; 
But such is not the wording of the bond.” 


205 


I see a great and mighty sea of troubles rise, 
Whose waves beat high toward the throne 
Where Justice sits and holds within a hand 
The balances wherein is retribution, though it 
seems 

To mortal man to gain its balance slow; 
But fine exceedingly shall be ground 
The weak designs of the haughty and the 
proud. 

Vain glorious is the boast of him 

Who holds no higher title to his gold. 

Were stars to drop as diamonds at his feet, 
And all the treasures of the mighty deep 
Be trumpeter to the march of time, 

Not a single house would thus escape, 

Nor a single moment thaw the chilly frost of 
age. 

There is other blood than flows within 
The fleshy veins of man. Hope deferred, 

A broken heart toiling in vain 
Will rise as quickly to the skies 
As in olden the blood of Abel, 

And at the hand of every man 


206 


Will be required, and the same unknightly 
Answer will no more requite, 

But, lighter in these later times, 

More keen the sense, a speechless answer. 

He tries in vain to figure o’er his vast 
Accounts, and every time some strange 
Sum total brings a cipher in each column, 
Stands the foot of all a cipher. 

And no more. And farther still 
He sees a pen dipped in orphans’ blood, 
Those very figures write on marble 
Tablets, every line o’ercharged— 

In double lines appear and at the foot 
No ciphers are, but sums prodigious, 
Counting all that might have been, 

Had his impious hand forebore. 

I am but a child, a simple child; 

I try in vain these mysteries to explore— 
Each in his time, the ripened grain, 

Will garnered be, and such a breeze 

From truth will blow, and light 

So penetrating shine that tares 

Will soon discovered be 

And find no longer place among the grain. 


207 


I am amused at thoughts so sober 
And so grave, and I smile 
At the rough and hardy vesture 
I have made for musings so severe. 

Yet I know that truth had entered in 
The past and set afloat this homely drift; 

I leave this tangled web and mercenary des¬ 
pots, 

To mingle in the walks of those I love. 

Below our garden two great elms 
Stand guard, and spread their branches 
Far and wide; a narrow brook or spring, 
Emerges from the hillside just beyond. 

And, sparkling clear and cool, passes 
At their base, and fringed with willows 
And strips of meadow green, run through 
A neighbor’s field and far away. 

Here, within the shade of these 
Tall trees a year ago we stood— 

Little Hettie Evelard, a friend of mine— 

And talked about our schools, it being vaca¬ 
tion, 


208 


Talked of the weighty questions 
And the times when we had almost been 
The first, if some slight thing had not 
Occurred, some purely accidental thing. 

Then we fell to talk of girls we met 
At school, and those we liked, 

And those that had shown us some conceit; 
And, last of all, the boys, and then 

I promised what girls always promise not to 
tell, 

And they would show me something fine. 

I knew the writing and could not read a line, 
And being angry, turned away, nor heard 

It was given her as friend of mine, 

And for my hand today I found 
My friend, and this the song: 

“Side by side two roses grew— 

One so white it opening blew, 

Had Borealis shaken down 
That very day his frosty crown, 

Not one petal brought to view 

Would discover a single hue, 

One so red its very blood 

Seemed oozing from the opening bud— 

Mars dropped down his empire, 


209 


His red face of burning fire, 

Concentrating here alone his power, 
Within this little opening flower— 

Canst thou tell, thou vain conceit 

What delicate food the roses eat? 
Transpose from me this hard equation, 
From dullest earth to life’s creation— 
Speak, and ask the quiet earth. 

Why red and white are given birth. 

Where do the delicate odors go 
When frigid Arctic drives his snow, 

In whose bosom the silence keeps? 

Who wakes them out of their quiet sleep? 
I know a child of nature fair— 

Not even the brightest roses dare 
Lift their heads or even compare. 

But softly now, I know her still, 

Pronounce her name against my will, 

A current all my being thrills— 

What makes the heart more quickly beat? 

Is it imagination’s vain conceit, 

Or hath our being a settled voice 
Unknown to us, makes up our choice, 
Forced, perchance, to even wait? 


210 


Always watching at the gate, 

Like a prisoner in love’s chains, 

Rushing madly through our veins— 

Peace, sweetheart, yon fixed star, 

Age on age without a jar, 

Contemplation vast, alone, 

Forever round one central throne— 

Little Hettie Evelard, my friend, the sweetest 
face! 

None like her, none not living, 

Nor on earth. Her smile, as when 

The sun breaking through an evening cloud, 

Spreads light and glory all around. 

A life so glad, a heart so full of joy, 

Unlike my own, a harp unstrung, 

Not music, but the echo of strange gone by— 

I see a field, barren and waste, 

Some torrent or resistless flood, 

Hath crashed and broken, and 
Ground to dust and borne away, 

Like some great forest’s ragged edge 


211 


In black and frightful lines, and burned with 
fire. 

But now we are the best of friends, 

And he my other friend in foreign lands, 
Hand in hand we climb the gentle slope 

Leading up above and out beyond my country 
home. 

Here while little Hettie falls asleep, 

With softest hair that ever kissed 
The morning’s gentle summer breeze, 

Within my lap in childish confidence. 

While I, forgetting where, in wandering 
Had in the field thought of strange fancies 
Until unto like real life they grew. 

I seem to sit in the depths of some great ocean, 
And high above the clouds, like ships 
Sailing by, were fringed with whitest foam, 
And faces that I knew. 

And hands were stretched toward me, 

And I saw the sailors stir themselves, 

And try to cast anchor, which, far too short, 
Fell dangling high above my head. 


212 


And I heard the captain’s word 

In loudest tones, which seemed they thought 

Me dead—long dead—and drowned— 

And I tried to make a signal 

Of my handkerchief, and thus 
I woke my darling Hettie and myself, 

And I thought, Is life so like a dream? 

How many an anchor hath too short appeared! 

And happiness trust in coming ships 
That sail but like the clouds in air; 

Far away in shining whiteness, grand and still, 
Like some great heavy cloud whose base 

Rests on the solid earth, and whose 
Topmost edge, glowing in the evening sun, 
Shows points that cut far deeper 
Into heaven’s blue and dizzy heights! 

The mountains of my childhood home, 

Like great granite, whose broad base 
And beetling cliffs hath ever been the curb 
Of tyrants! How oft hath war’s 

Red current flowed and dashed in maddened 
Waves against thy sides! 

But ever hath thy clear and sparkling 
Streams, and herds that graze upon thy grassy 
slope, 




213 


And villages that skirt thy myriad lakes, 

And the shepherd's cottage and clear free 
voice, 

Been the meat and drink and nursery 
Of freedom’s sons in refuge and despair! 

And cursed be he whose eyes have seen 
Unmoved these great ’fenders of our race, 
Whose huge backs doth rear aloft 
An icy barrier against the foe. 

Among the rough and jagged peaks, 

Or within thy narrow gates, single-handed 

And alone, sons of freedom 

Hath not feared to meet the world in arms. 

I fancy now I see the rush of battle; 

Xerxes like a flood o’erflows the earth— 

I hear the shout of Leonidas and the brave 
Ring out in bold defiance to the last, 

With no allies, save these steep and rugged 
hills. 

Thus I thought of farther still and noble deeds, 
Wrought by heathens in the olden time, 

Who bared their bosoms for their country’s 
weal; 


214 


And banished oft, despite their wrongs 
Turned ever toward their native land— 

I read of one, a captive Jew in Babylon, 

Who thrice each day did face Jerusalem. 

Why not seek these nobler parts again? 

How many millions have been rich, 

To sink like water in the thirsty sand! 

If wealth was aught to be desired, 

Why not, like Alexander, roh the world 
And save their manhood from the curse 
Of robbing those should be befriended; 

To take what we may earn with our strong 
hands, 

Together with the earnings of the poor? 
Says Hettie Evelard, my friend, 

For she is one who gathers flowers 
And tells you all their names, 

And all the meaning of their color shows, 

And in her house-plants rare and costly, 
Grew and took delight in painting, 

And all her life seemed active. 

And ’twas plain to see the deep, 

Quiet undercurrent of her life 

Run smoothly on, and unconscious 

Still of any power save this outward dress 


215 


And bright appearance of true happiness. 

How often we have chosen each to read 
A poem or sing a favorite song. 

And Hettie chose the lighter rhymes 

That marched to the music of jingling bells, 
Or pastoral ballads free and glad 
Not seeing in the deep but heavy muse 
Ought but dullness if void of rhymes— 

Said Hettie, her face all rippling with delight, 
In the bright buoyancy of her glad heart, 

You do not look or seem at all 

The same, my trusted schoolmate frend. 

Your eyes seem watching fairies 
In some far and unknown fairyland; 

I do not seem to please you as of old. 

See, I have woven this fair wreath, 

And offer now to make amends for my bad 
company. 

I have had a quiet sleep, and you 

Seem now but waking from strange dreams.. 

As manhood will not mate with youth, 

Nor infancy with thoughts of age; 

So I have passed within a field 

Where simple flowers will never bloom again, 

But where we see what is the truth. 


216 


The type has pleased and will please 
The fancies of many older grown; 

But when the heart has once discerned 
What the brightest flowers but weakly typify, 

It cannot use them, but lay aside 
As but the garment of a finer thought 
Which speaks to those who understand. 

I turned aside my face, too sad to speak; 

For did not Hettie understand 
That I was drifting with the tide 
Far out upon the sea of life? 

Even now our hands were parting 

Not all the loves of our young days 
Could purchase many hours’ delay; 

But destiny, like some sharp rock, will cut 
The oaken timbers of the ship in twain. 

Not iron bars can hold the broken parts, 

Or ever make them one again. 

When first I knew that Hettie could not walk 
With me, that stronger forces than the heart 
of friend and will 

Were lord and master of our lives, 

I paused, and thought to backward trace, 
Unveiling all the strange mysterious dreams— 
The gate was shut; I was 


217 


Nor more a child, and thoughts that seemed 
To me full laden with the beating pains 
And throbbing brows of a toiling world, 
Were to her but colors in the rainbow 

Of mysteries that, like a garment, covers life. 
But now we rise, and hand in hand 
Return through fields of scented clover; 

And on the wind was borne the odor 

Of the sweet, beautiful kine, which, lowing, 
run 

To meet me, for I knew them well, 

And had often pulled the plantain 
With my childish hands and fed them, 

And given them the salt of kindness. 

And now I fancy if in this field 
We were assailed by some wild beast 
We’d have as many and as brave knights 

As did the lady Queen Guinevere. 

Hettie, in a vein of childish sport, 

Had found a four-leaf clover; 

And I, to please, sought in vain, 


218 


Could not find, and after this 
The ringing of bells, a crowd of strangers, 
And the great tide swept between us without 
control, 

As when the earth rattles down 

Upon the coffin clay, and hope, 

The lives seemed strangled by despair, 

Yet living both, and feeling all 
Of death's strange power, and frigid 

Walls between .... returned into my house. 
And work, the sweetest blessing God has given 
To rest the sad and weary heart, was there; 
And mother’s face, always sunny and bright 

And sweet with smiles. And she, 

At my bidding, takes her easy chair 
And knits, while I the supper dishes 
Quickly place and call my father 

From the field; and at the table 
Hear him talk, taking delight in all, 

Learning from him the names 
Of the numerous plants that grow 

In his broad fields and pasture-lands. 

For each day some new one he brings, 

And tells me all its parts and how 

It grows, and whether early or late it blooms. 


219 


I sometimes carry water to the field, 

And always there I find a rich and rare 
bouquet 

Which my father or his men have gathered 
In the shady places or beside the fields. 

My father bids me sing. I run my fingers 
O’er the keys in soft and quiet strains, 
Choosing some simple ballad or a song 
Which pleases better than the highest note. 

In my room alone, I read a book. 

Today I took my album down.... 

First I find a verse which says 
A true friend is the gift of God; 

And one: “Remember me your true friend, 
Hettie Evelard;” and another rhymes— 
Birthday present when the times 
Were clearing from the childish fancies. 

I leap into another year, 

As a fawn leaps from her bed; 

I shut my eyes, I wake, I hear, 

That crystal frost has overspread. 

I comb my ringlets in the sun, 

I catch strange fancies as they fall, 

But curling back where I begun, 

It were better not to comb at all. 


220 


A spider sits all night awake, 

Weaving a delicate, silken swing, 

Which a falling dewdrop sure will break, 
And to his toil full ruin bring. 

I leave my toys—A child at play 
Last year, I have no need of thee. 

Yet, trust the future will not lay 
The heavier for the loss of thee. 

I will not hasten lest the light 
Rise strong before the race begins— 

Not those who hasten in the fight, 

But those who persevere that win. 

‘Leaf by leaf, I turn the pages— 

Some show where struggling infancy, 

To grasp a ripe conceit in vain, 

Hath written dull, uncolored lines; 

And here with floating hand is traced, 

A simple line which I pause and read again 
Be silent, listen, thou shalt learn 
The music of the spheres. 

In this the truth. Could all jars 
And discords loud and shrill 
By some vast and unchained thought 
To order be reduced, and music flow, 


221 


And an eternal harmony be revealed— 

Were this the source and settled cause, 

Who then would pause or shrink to take 
His part in the great author of the world? 

I close the book to muse on these 
Short and living records of my friends, 

And think how like the errant comet 
Wandering far into empty space, 

Fresh from the sun with his bright train.... 
With matchless flight, he searches all the void, 
And outer edge of vastest space, 

But, like the dove that to the ark 

Could but return again for refuge, 

Finds no circuit will extend 

Forever, and turns his paling face—prodigal, 

His life revived, he wanders forth; 

Dissatisfied, again returns, meteor-like, 

Shoots from foundation’s brink 
To be consumed in outer air, 

Lost and commingled in the storms of the 
world. 


222 


But most of all I love the quiet hours, 

Where fancies bring me odors sweet, 

Where flowers bloom, and wonders of the 
world, 

Spreading tables where the good and great 

Are honored, and the names pass 
Into living thoughts that stir 
The sleeping souls to action, and give 
Courage to the weak and fainting heart. 

And sleep—what shall I say of sleep, 

That like a second mother comes 

And smooths the wrinkles from a tired brow? 

Thou lover of the weary heart, 

Who holds thee so close in his embrace, 
Unconscious we of hunger, pain and woe; 
Alive to fancy still we see and taste 
Of real life that comes to many but in dreams. 

The traveler on the desert sands of life 
Slumbers amid cool and running streams, 

With golden goblets to his lips, smiles and 
dies; 

The voyager lost on the sea’s expanse 


223 


Renews his hope amid his wildest dreams of 
home; 

Famine, with his gaunt and bony hand, 

Had often been too strong for life, 

But that couch where thou hast lain 

Was furnished with the sight 
Of every tempting fruit that grows. 

Besides my father’s, I have 
A garden fenced around, a gate 

That opens on the public road; 

And here I try my skill at growing plants 
Which bloom and give me many pleasant 
hours. 

Here at the outer gate a woman 

Veiled and very sad did praise my plants. 

I begged that she would enter in 
And take what pleased her, 

Showing those most rare, and offered 

All due and gentle courtesy, 

Till, bidding me good-day with many thanks, 
She withdrew, and thus for many days 
This veiled and sad-faced lady 


224 


Came and took a few rare buds, 

And went away, nor would approach, 

Nor accept my invitation to remain 
And rest within the house. 

1 learned that she had lately come 
Into this, our simple country town, 

And lived alone not far beyond 
The farther hill seen from my home. 

There is a story in the silent thoughtful lives 
Of many that the world doth pass 
Unnoticed, calls idle, selfish, or unkind, 
Whose burdens are too great and hopeless_ 

The great heart suffers on alone, 

Will not answer to contumely’s curling lips, 
Nor the vacant stare of the curious idle.... 
Thus I found my stranger friend. A deep 

And sad sorrow had written harsh lines. 

She, reading quickly what I would inquire, 
Said you call me this, my name is 
Not now older than the colt that plays 

In yonder fields across the way; 

It is hard to be alone when sorrow is your 
guest. 

Tis since but yesterday Edward placed 
This jewel, and no sun e’er shone 


225 


More 'brightly at the tide of noon, 

Or rose in morning splendor o’er the hills 
In this the brightest of all lands, 

Than did the sparkling joy of hope 

Shine through and through our young lives. 
But Edward, always strong in the weak 
Defence of those that need and wait 
In vain for the cultured and the wise for help, 

In bearing food for the orphan children in the 
cold 

Lost and perished in the storm. 

What joy can recompense a day thus spent, 

A life that living sees the death of hope and 
love? 

One child we had, a little girl, 

Fair-haired and dancing like the leaves upon 
the trees 

When stirred by gentle zephyrs, or the flowers 
That shake their tiny petals in the dew, 

And nod and nod to kiss the passing breeze . . 
But you cannot understand a mother’s love— 
Her voice e’en discordant, yet shall make 
The sweetest music broad earth contains, 


226 


Sweeter than the fabled voice of Siren 
Which barbarian soldiers heard and forgot 
their native land .... 

One evening in the month of June, 

A bright bouquet had brought to me, 

From the wildwood near the door— 

Going forth again, did not return. 

I raised a shout; the neighbors came, 

And all that evening and night 

Ran through the field and in the woods; 

And the rising sun saw many on horses, 

And the shout of a lost child rang 
On and on, and still it rings; 

And though twenty summers, with returning 
Flowers and green bright leaves, have come 
And gone, I yet can see the sunny hair 
And little feet threading the tangled grass 

In deep, wild woods; 

And worse I fear the tangled grass 

And nets and pitfalls of designing men .... 

The next was Holy Sabbath day, 


227 


And all the doors were shut; and when we’d 
searched 

The woods and fields and in the bottom of the 
stream, 

And nothing found, we knew she had been 
stolen. 

In every city in this land I’ve lived, 

Hunting daily for my child. I have changed 
My name while hunting for my child— 

The little fair-haired child, twenty years 
Older than my friend who hears this tale. 

What you call is not my name—’tis hard— 
For Edward’s sake, my name is Evelard, 

My true and lawful name, Florence Evelard. 
As the current of a river flowing wide o’er- 
flows the land, 

So my thoughts at that one word flew 
Quickly o’er the past, and wonder, 
Astonishment grew to certainty and belief, 

I saw the features, and the voice was 

But the sadder echo of my laughing girl— 

I wept for joy; for had not father said, 

That Hettie was an orphan whose 
Parents were unknown, save these her foster 
people, 


228 


Who were kind and good and very true? 

So I went and brought Hettie, and told her all 
the truth, 

And bade her not to speak till safety might be 
known. 

But when the light and tripping feet 

Of Hettie stepped upon the threshold of the 
door— 

One steadfast look—she recognized her child, 

And, fainting, fell upon the floor; 

But now in Hettie’s home with loving hearts— 

Returning home, I saw the checkered form 
rise up from the sea, 

Where the sun’s dying flame brings out the 
evening star, 

Growing large and dark like some line of 
battleships, 

Round and round with majestic fury. 

Grand and full of strange and awful power, 

Approached, retreated, then nearer came till 
darkness fell; 

Then I heard that all the fields were naked, 

And the orphaned children and the gray-haired 


229 


Stood alone and helpless in a barren waste. 
Thus my hands were full for many a day— 
Whether good or ill we pass it by— 

When a letter came, and with it remembrances 
of other times. 

Praise not the rosy west, 

For there the great sun is dying; 

Pluck not the white, white rose, 

For beneath it the thorn is lying. 

Trust not the soft and liquid eye— 

Though kind and beautiful, beware; 

Like a bird, take wings and fly 
Far away from the snare. 

I love to stroke the sleek gazelle, 

But it dances out of my sight— 

I had tamed a whip-poor-will, 

But its song was only at night. 

I dream of one who is bound for home, 
Unconscious of a stormy sea; 

The brave ship glides across the main— 

See how she dashes the ribbon foam 

Into sheets of spray, while the rainbow sits 
Athwart her bow in a purple cript— 

Good-by to the shore, she cuts the wave, 
Behind her the seething whirlpools dance 


230 


Muster the true, enroll the brave, 

For tonight thou shalt see the sea-king’s face, 
And grind thy bottom on a rocky coast, 

Give back, give back, oh sea, the fair! 

There is none in this vessel the world can 
spare. 

I heard the wind sweep o’er the sea, 

Tumbling the waves into mountain heights, 
With a whizzing whir of tattered sails. 

And broken masts like stems of cane 
Broken by the tread of elk or deer. 

Oh sea, thy pitiless moan is but the dead 
Crying for air in thy bed. 

I hate thee; with thy placid smile 
Thou art setting a trap for my kind, 

Thou hast taken the brave in thy remorseless 
wave, 

And we look around us in vain for the fair. 

Thou fillest the whole ocean and like a miser, 
still stand— 

We curse thee—thou leavest but mourners on 
land. 

And one was braver than the rest, 

Caught a straggling broken spar, 


231 


And, sailing onward towards the west, 
Crossed o’er the harbor bar; 

And one, a soldier bound for home, 
Wrapped the flag around his breast, 

And o’er the rushing, raging foam 
Leaped from crest to crest, 

To find in other things their gain. 

Many sad ones turned aside, 

And the great hope of life 
Perished in the tide. 

But one there was voyaged safe 
’Neath smiling skies, with waters calm; 

And the birds of the woods 
Sang forth in joy; 

And all the sheaves in my father’s field 
Bowed in his welcome. 


232 


OLDEN TIMES 


Soft twilight steals upon Judah’s plain. 

The last rays of the setting sun 

Are gone. The last refrain 

Has been sung; and the old has passed away. 

The world sleeps in quiet; the peaceful day, 

Has passed to peaceful ev’ning gray. 

Great Rome is dead; 

The centurian’s voice is still. 

Silenced evermore the tread 

Of her invincible legions. No shrill 

Shout of battle-shouts now doth fill 

The world with glory, nor our bosoms thrill. 

Again the world’s at rest in peace; 

No iron power doth bind the nations now: 
But, taught of Christ, mad war doth cease. 

The sword and spear remain to show us how 
Man, untaught, before revenge would Low 
When death for death his anger would allow. 


233 


WINTER AND SPRING 


Winter, wrapped in snowy robes, 

Lay down and shut his eyes, 

While spring rose up, put on his clothes, 
And took him by surprise. 

Through many a tangled, rough ravine 
He rushed from out the bottom-lands; 
While from the streams soon disappeared 
His glittering icy bands. 

A few remained in shaded nooks— 

There lingered day by day, 

Till spring’s advancing cohorts came 
And drove them all away. 

Full many a league they northward fled, 
Still hiding from the sun; 

But spring pushed on, nor e’er gave up 
Until the race was won. 


234 


MAGDALEN 


Do not speak to her—Let her alone. 

She hath sorrow—Whate’er it be, it’s her own. 
Let the curtain fall; let it cover her woe. 
For this is her wish: That you shall not know! 
The faith you have in her, let it be shown. 

Do not stare at her so. Let the world gaze 
On its gods of diamonds, and let these blaze 
And cover the wrinkles of time and sin; 

But watch thou to help, lest temptation might 
win, 

And keep thou a word to strengthen their 
ways. 

The Lord knowest the heart. Hence, darest 
thou say 

Thou needest no pardon, and turn her away? 
What cans’t thou say if thy soul he demand ? 
The God of the Prophets is still in the land. 
Christ is the refuge of all in that day! 


235 


A HAIL STORM 


I saw the mighty cohorts of the sky, 

Black, grand and formidable as the new-made 
world, 

Rear themselves, heap upon heap, and high 
over all 

Till the pitchy blackness turned to mottled 
green, 

And patches smooth and white as driven snow 

Appeared, shutting out the sight of field and 
wood. 

Then came the pounding, rattling sound, 

As if a thousand trees had cast their myriad 
nuts 

Upon a single field; and a crashing of break¬ 
ing windows 

Filled the air, and driving wind and shouts of 
fear. 


236 


WINTER 


The giant pine tree’s head is bowed, 

That seems to pierce the misty cloud. 

From high within his drooping top 
Does frosty-freckled incense drop. 

And deep through all the smothered glen, 
Wide-spread across both bog and fen, 
Winter’s fairy footsteps fall. 

By roughest fields of crop and crown, 
Through tangled branches weighted down, 

The weary hunter slyly creeps, 

While the fragile flower beneath him sleeps. 

And naught is seen so clear and bright 
As are the fields of crystal white 
When winter storms are at their height. 

And now the winds with the trees will speak— 
Unlocking all the crystal forms 
Planted there by the winter storms. 

Even the trunk of the giant oak 

Will feel the shock of the furious stroke; 

And many a gallant stem will break, 
Tumbling down with the frostly flake, 

And all that stand will bend and quake. 


237 


Many a day will the frozen mist 

Be by the storm gods cuffed and kissed. 

War of winds playing hide-and-seek, 

Burying the hunter in their wondrous feat. 

And naught shall change till the sun’s warm 
face 

Shall challenge the snow for a running race; 
And from every glen, and from every bower, 
Collect her forces for the trying hour— 

And thus shall be broken the winter’s power. 


238 


WINTER 


With frosty fingers creeping from the icy pole, 
Blowing his frozen breath across the land, 
The leaping spring within its sparkling bowl 
Will reach abroad and take him by the hand. 

The river, too, will spread a bridge congealed 
To catch the white and silken down. 

The silver bough, as if it kneeled, 

Hears the wild winds whistling round. 

The jay-bird pipes his lonely roundelay— 

All other birds have southward flown— 

All living things must haste away, 

For Winter, king, is on his throne. 

The creeping mole digs deep in the earth, now 
cold and dank, 

All nature’s sick, with ague chill within its 
breast; 

And from river to river, and from bank to 
bank, 

Steals the white snow, the shroud of death. 


239 


MY VALENTINE 


If love of my love had been seen 
When the wind rose up in the east, 

And the clouds were yellow with gold, 

And wide o’er woodland and wold 
Had spread the delicate green, 

And naught had troubled my dream, 

Love had waxed and increased. 

But a storm blew a cloud o’er the skies, 

And it sailed so close to the sun 
That its wings which were silvery white 
Grew red with anger or fright; 

Then to the east let it fly, 

There let wither and die, 

Sinking away till the day is done. 

A cloud—a cloud of thunder and storm— 
Arose in the night and covered the moon and 
the stars; 

And it sailed away through the gates of the 
dawn, 

And leaped in the sky like a leaping fawn; 
But the wind, the wild wind, blew it away, 
And it dipped its plume in the sun’s first ray, 
Then let him alone to keep the earth warm. 


240 


Oh, the universe, the universe of love, 

With its circle of deepest blue— 

With its clear-cut sphere and shining stars, 
And clouds that meet with angry wars, 

And the sun with its passionate hue, 

That melts and glows whate’er we do, 

And the dim and milky-way above— 

And I were a weaver I would weave a spell, 
That beauty might be forever free, 

From the delicate touch of her finger-tips 
To the words that leap from her rosy lips, 
And dance and play like the waves of the sea, 
As they ripple and sing of the mermaids’ glee, 
Or a woody sprite in dale or dell; 

But beauty will fly like the lost Pleiades, 

Fly far away to a land unknown, 

And the liquid eye be drowned in the tear, 
And flowers will come to cover her bier,— 
Hasten, O hasten, before it has flown, 

For reapers will reap where sowers have 
sown,— 

Leave the marigold and olive trees. 


241 


THE TORNADO 


The cloud with its tangled draperies 
Weft on a magical loom, 

Sped along the horizon, 

Bringing the cannon’s boom. 

Then an unearthly stillness 
Oppressed the wanted breeze, 

And the quaking-asp ceased to laugh 
Through all its trembling leaves. 

Then was heard a distant roaring— 

Far away it seemed to be— 

And the tops of the trees were waving 
Like the billows on the sea. 

And now the furies have it, 

In the wildest dream of delight, 

And they scatter the earth with wreckage 
Like an army in its flight. 

The mighty whirlwind treads the earth 
And cuffs the blustering gale, 

Into a very hell of carnage 

Till the heavens themselves grow pale. 


242 


TO MISS H. 


I saw a star so wondrous bright 
Had it been day instead of night 
Of wild despair and cold disdain, 

I would reach across the chasm to kiss 
A shadow fleeing from her face, 

A shadow of divinest grace, 

So airy that my fancy slips 

And takes the measure from her lips. 

TO MISS C. 

Thou art fair, and I am sure as sure can be, 
Whate’er the world should offer me, 

I’d choose but thee. 

And storms might beat on land and sea— 
Dread war and anarchy— 

And ocean roar from shore to shore, 

And freedom cease forevermore— 

Could I but hold thee true and fast, 

Though our ship of state lost every mast, 
With thee the rocking hull might roam— 
The wildest ocean were a home. 


243 


TO MISS E. 


The truest heart that e’er I knew 
Showered blessings down like honey dew. 
As fair and chaste as Heaven’s blue, 

The brightest stars are shining through. 
Sweet Enid, thou hast taught the trees. 

To yield their sweets like honey bees. 

No harp is sweeter than thy voice; 

And here I make my only choice. 

I never saw in fancy’s dream 
A nymph uprising from a stream, 

That could boast one half the graces, 

Or look so archly in our faces, 

Or be so truthful in her wiles, 

Or half so radiant when she smiles. 


244 


IN WINTER 


A stormy cloud hangs over all; 

Around the frosty snowflakes fall; 

Aloud the shrieking winds do call 
In winter. 

The jay-bird hops among the trees, 

And pipes his little song with ease— 
About the only thing that’s pleased 
With winter. 

Across the fields of gathered corn 
The hunter sounds his bugle horn, 

To call the hounds at early morn 
In winter. 

But the widow and the fatherless 
Feel more keenly their distress, 

With cares that others might not guess, 
In winter. 

The trees are bare, the birds have flown, 
And every spot that we have known 
So green, is with ermine sown, 

In winter. 


245 


THE WOODS 


I will follow the woods, 

Crossing here and there a narrow lane 
Which leads through some rich field. 

A mood that ever catches at the beautiful 
Turns my eyes inward from the sight. 

What else were one fair paradise of flowers, 
That grew in tangled masses in the light 
Of perfumed voice of June? For hours, 

By idle fancy stirred, and thinking, 

I passed the spring where I a boy, in drinking 
Had tumbled on the narrow stone and fallen; 
Then, as a ship struggling on a reef 
Frees herself and sets sail, 

I arose and fled in glee. 

But now a deeper feeling stirs than mirth, 

And other changes there I see 

Have wrought within me, and have given birth 

To storms that beat upon the lea 

Of circumstances, and strange things to come. 

And so through all the land where I was born, 

Doth the mellow sunlight fall; 

And memory, coming back through all the 
years, 

Touches not of winter or of death. 


246 


TO MISS A. 


As bright as the summer is at morn— 
The very newest newly born— 

When sweetest perfumes fill the air— 
Thus brightly golden is her hair. 

She is my love—brush light the dew, 
From anything she ever knew. 

Give me the eyes, the love, the look, 
That I might copy .in a book. 

And I would thereat build a shrine, 
And everyone would say “Divine!” 

My spirit trembles with a doubt, 
Should others find my beauty out. 


247 


THE DREAM 


I feel thy presence still is here; 

With thy smiles I am still delighted; 

And an angry word, I fear, 

Would escape thee wert thou slighted. 

Hope there is in the to-morrow, 

To the tired and toiling swain— 

And e’en the miser has a pleasure 
In the heaping of his gain. 

But thou art full convinced thou canst not, 
Whether can not, would or should — 

Thou hast a stone within thy bosom, 

And thy heart is frozen blood. 

But how and where doth fancy tend? 

Thou hast blessed me and hast made amends. 
Last night thou crossed the frozen earth 
That soul with soul might blend. 

Hope, once strangled at its birth, 

As when the sun doth touch the snow, 

Once more within me doth revive; 

For even now I feel it glow. 


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